Talking Therapy Episode 45: Combating Schemas with Experience

Hosts:
Marvin Goldfried, PhD, Stony Brook University ( / goldfriedmarvin )
Allen Frances, MD, Duke University ( / allenfrancesmd )
Producer:
Alan Kian, MA, York University
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Marvin Goldfried is a distinguished professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, where he helped to develop the graduate program in clinical psychology-he is the cofounder of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration. Allen Frances is a professor of psychiatry and chair emeritus at Duke, and was chair of the DSM-IV task force.
Marvin describes the evolution of his psychotherapy orientation as psychodynamic, behavioral, CBT, and eventually integrative. He practices, teaches, and supervises what works clinically using direct and indirect evidence base.
Allen describes his approach to psychotherapy as “whatever works” or “no one size fits all”. He was trained and taught at the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center, but remains equally interested in brief, supportive, cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, and family therapies.
Please enjoy this week’s episode!

[@enatp6448]

Thanks guys!

[@MrASG1984]

I think it would be important to understand someone’s logic in order to interrupt it. For some people, changing their cognition is about guiding them, using their already established schemas that surround it. Kind of like shifting an item in a box of packing peanuts, create a different shape. For others it’s interrupting, and replacing. Perhaps it’s establishing the healthy packing peanuts (schemas), making them sturdy enough, that replacing the schema gradually that makes sense in the box, then shaping it to the preferred shape after. At which point, everything can relax.
Does this make sense? Just a thought.

[@lau-guerreiro]

I agree. I think we have a network of schemas and sub-schemas and habits, and a sub-schema may be supported by more than one schema, and to a degree, the sub-schemas also support the root schemas, so you have to deal with that whole area of the network.
So sometimes, when you get rid of a root schema, several dependent sub-schemas will also collapse. (Through the use of the logic: If A is false then A1 and A2 must be false.)
But other times, the sub-schemas are so strongly entrenched and supported by neighboring schemas, that they remain firmly in place and force the root schema to be recreated.
(Through the use of the logic: If A1 and A2 are true, then A must be true.)

[@lau-guerreiro]

I think that all future research should take into account a patient's Five Factor Personality 'score', to look for how that moderates the outcomes. I think you will find that people who are high in Openness will have different results to those with low Openness. And that maybe different techniques work better for people with high Conscientiousness than low, or with high Agreeableness vs low Agreeableness.
Frankly, I find it surprising that research is still being done without taking these factors into consideration!