What is Limited Reparenting?
The process of limited reparenting is at the heart of schema therapy and is one of its most unique and defining elements. Limited reparenting refers to the therapist helping you to meet your early childhood needs and establishing a secure attachment with you.
Limited reparenting flows directly from schema therapy’s assumption that early maladaptive schemas and modes arise when your core needs are not met. Schema therapy’s aim is to meet these needs by helping yout find the experiences that were missed in early childhood that will serve as an antidote to the damaging experiences that led to maladaptive schemas and modes. Limited reparenting, paralleling healthy parenting, involves the establishment of a secure attachment through the therapist, within the bounds of a professional relationship, doing what he/she can to meet these needs. Research spanning a wide range of disciplines supports the notion that secure attachment is at the root of adaptive functioning, well-being and flourishing.
How Does the Therapist Do Limited Reparenting?
Just as the process of parenting takes many different forms, limited reparenting may involve warmth and nurturance, firmness, self-disclosure, confrontation, playfulness, and setting limits, among other things. Schema therapy involves simultaneous tenderness and firmness through what is called “empathic confrontation.” It also varies depending on the phase of treatment. Schema therapy cannot be categorized by a particular stance such as neutrality, firmness or nurturance. Instead, schema therapy includes a broad range of responses by the therapist, flexibility, and the organization of these responses around your core needs.
What are the Key Steps in Limited Reparenting
Limited reparenting involves reaching the Vulnerable Child Mode. The therapist will be reassuring and protective of the vulnerable child. In contrast, the therapist will be firm with or setting limits on the avoidant and compensatory modes that block access to the vulnerable child modes or schemas. In addition, it often requires that the therapist help you fight punitive, demanding, or subjugating parent modes or schemas. Limited reparenting is usually facilitated by the use of guided imagery, an experiential technique that allows the therapist to establish more direct emotional contact with the various modes and schemas.
How to Find Schema Therapy – San Jose/Los Gatos
The Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center in Silicon Valley (San Jose/Los Gatos) specializes in schema therapy. Click to send an email for more information on how we can help you using schema therapy.
Silicon Valley Communities We Serve
Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center of Silicon Valley offers evidence-based therapy for Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder near the following Silicon Valley/San Jose communities:
San Jose Therapy Counseling • Saratoga Therapy Counseling • Los Gatos Therapy Counseling • Monte Sereno Therapy Counseling • Cupertino Therapy Counseling • Campbell Therapy Counseling • Mountain View Therapy Counseling • Los Altos Therapy Counseling • Sunnyvale Therapy Counseling • Santa Clara Therapy Counseling
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