Deliberate Practice in Schema Therapy

Deliberate practice exercises allow students and trainees to rehearse foundational schema therapy skills so that they can build competence and hone their own personal therapeutic styles.

Each book in the Essentials of Deliberate Practice series contains customized role-playing exercises in which two trainees act as a client and a therapist, switching back and forth under a supervisor’s guidance. The trainee playing the therapist improvises appropriate and authentic responses to client statements organized into three difficulty levels--beginner, intermediate, and advanced--reflecting common issues encountered by schema therapists.

The first 12 exercises focus on skills derived from schema therapy’s three stages--bonding and emotional regulation, mode change, and autonomy--and include limited reparenting, psychoeducation about schema modes, and empathic confrontation. Following these are two comprehensive exercises--an annotated transcript and free-form mock therapy sessions--in which trainees integrate essential skills into a single session.

Step-by-step instructions guide participants through the exercises, identify criteria for mastering each skill, and explain how to monitor and adjust difficulty. Guidelines to help trainers and trainees get the most out of training are also provided.

Wendy T. Behary, MSW, LCSW, is the founder and director of The Cognitive Therapy Center of New Jersey and The Schema Therapy Institutes of NJ-NYC-DC. She was also the President of the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST) from 2010-2014. She is the author of Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed (New Harbinger Publications). She has been treating narcissist clients, their partners and associates, and couples experiencing relationship problems; training professionals; and supervising psychotherapists for over 20 years. She lectures internationally to professional and general audiences on schema therapy and on narcissism and relationships.

Joan Farrell, PhD, is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and the Research Director of the Center for Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment and Research, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). She is an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at IUPUI and was on the Clinical Psychology faculty at Indiana University School of Medicine. Joan was the Coordinator for Training and Certification on the Executive Board of the International Society of Schema Therapy. With Ida Shaw, she developed a group model of schema therapy that integrates experiential interventions and harnesses the therapeutic factors of groups. She provides schema therapy training and self-reflection workshops internationally.

Alexandre Vaz, PhD, is cofounder and Chief Academic Officer of Sentio Institute. He provides deliberate practice workshops and clinical training and supervision around the world. Dr. Vaz is the author/coeditor of four books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and two book series: The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books) and Advanced Therapeutics, Clinical and Interpersonal Skills (Elsevier). He has held multiple committee roles for the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). Dr. Vaz is founder and host of ＂Psychotherapy Expert Talks,＂ an acclaimed interview series with distinguished psychotherapists and researchers.

Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD, is cofounder and Program Director of Sentio Institute. He provides workshops, webinars, and clinical training and supervision around the world. He is the author/coeditor of six books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and two book series: The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books) and Advanced Therapeutics, Clinical and Interpersonal Skills (Elsevier). In 2017, he published the widely cited article in The Atlantic Monthly, ＂What Your Therapist Doesn’t Know.＂ Dr. Rousmaniere supports the open-data movement and publishes clinical outcome data at https: //drtonyr.com/. He was awarded the Early Career Award by the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy.