Schema Therapy; Part V

This week I’ve started imagery rescripting with my psychologist. The idea being to revisit a painful memory but to rescript it in such a way that I’m able to provide the support that I needed in that situation.

Family Reflections

Here are some stories about my family that I’m going over with my psychologist:

Revisiting the money conversation

In today’s session I revisit the conversation where my dad asks to borrow money. I close my eyes and we walk through the scenario. We dig up the emotions I felt, the sense of failure for not being able to help. And then my psychologist steps in and we tell my dad how much of a dick he’s being and how he’s failed as a parent.

Hugging your inner child

Then I’m asked to imagine my inner child and give them a big hug. I struggled to imagine my inner child as me though because I was bullied for being fat as a kid. I have shame associated with that image. I ended up imagining Christopher Robin.

I had bullies at school and in the family, no wonder why I developed some problems.

My next steps is to work on my inner self child image. If I can learn to love and accept an image of me that I have shame in, I will be able to heal more from the experience.

5 comments

  1. Wow Sam and love your rawness! I’ve done a few painful variants of this and love how you framed it in that you do go through the pain, but it’s in a safe controlled space. Power to you!!!!!

    1. Thanks for your support Ed.

      It also felt amazing to have someone else tell me how successful I am in a moment of feeling like a failure.

    1. I know you mean well with this comment.

      But I don’t need to forgive my father for anything. I don’t deserve to be treated this way. One of the things that has helped me heal is to imagine my dad sitting in a chair in front of me and telling him how terrible he’s made me feel.

      By establishing clear boundaries and not allowing him to treat me poorly has been better for my healing process than “forgiveness”. I’m doing this with the help of my psychologist: https://bughuntersam.com/schema-therapy-part-vi/

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