Symposium Schedule — December 4–5, 2025 Event Schedule & Program Overview
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DELIBERATE PRACTICE A BREAKTHROUGH METHOD TO DEVELOPING SCHEMA THERAPY MASTERY
Deliberate Practice is redefining how therapists build mastery. Just as musicians and athletes refine their craft through targeted, repeated exercises, Schema Therapists can now apply the same science of skill acquisition to clinical training. This session, led by two of the field’s foremost master trainers, demonstrates how deliberate practice turns knowledge into embodied expertise.
Participants will see how Schema Therapy’s most essential micro-skills—empathic confrontation, limited reparenting, and experiential dialogue—can be broken down, practiced, and strengthened through structured feedback and repetition. Using role-play and real-time feedback, the presenters show how small, precise improvements lead to major gains in clinical effectiveness.
This interactive session offers a rare chance to observe deliberate practice in action and to understand how it bridges the gap between theory and transformative therapeutic performance.
EXPLORING EFFECTIVE GROUP THERAPIES FOR BPD: SCHEMA THERAPY MEETS DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY
Developed in the 1980s, both Group Schema Therapy (GST) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) have transformed the treatment of borderline personality disorder. Each has demonstrated strong results in randomized controlled trials, yet their methods, mechanisms of change, and group dynamics differ in meaningful ways.
This presentation provides a clear, research-informed comparison of both models, highlighting when each approach is best suited to a client’s needs. Attendees will gain a practical understanding of the key interventions, emotional regulation strategies, and therapeutic processes unique to each model.
Drawing from decades of clinical experience, Dr. Farrell and Ms. Kim will explore how therapist stance, structure, and theory shape outcomes in BPD treatment. Through case examples and discussion, participants will leave with sharper insight into how both therapies foster emotional regulation, schema change, and long-term recovery.
NAVIGATING THE CHALLENGES OF MODE CLASHES IN PARENT-TEEN CONFLICTS
Few dynamics are as emotionally charged as conflicts between parents and adolescents. Schema Therapy offers a powerful framework for understanding these struggles through the concept of mode clashes—moments when both parent and child respond from maladaptive modes, locking into patterns that escalate tension and block connection.
This presentation explores how schemas and unmet needs drive these recurring battles and demonstrates how identifying mode clashes can help families move from blame to understanding. Attendees will learn practical interventions to help parents and adolescents recognize their own modes, de-escalate reactivity, and uncover the underlying needs behind each person’s behavior.
Through vivid examples and live demonstration, Ida Shaw and Maria Galimzyanova will show how Schema Therapy helps families shift from control and defiance to empathy and collaboration. Participants will leave with actionable strategies to transform conflict into repair and connection.
Travis Atkinson, LCSW
The Missing Link in Couples Therapy: How Schema Therapy Unlocks the Breakthrough Other Models Can’t
Every couples therapist knows this pair. They have mastered every tool, naming their attachment wounds mid-argument, using flawless “I” statements, and tracking their cycles with precision. Yet one glance, one tone, one Saturday morning in the produce aisle, and everything falls apart.
Research tells the same story. Even in the best outcome studies, 30 to 40 percent of couples fail to sustain gains. The problem is not a lack of skill. Many of these partners are driven by schema-based dynamics that traditional attachment or behavioral models cannot reach.
These are not avoiders running from fear. They are overcompensators who attack vulnerability itself. Contempt, control, and punitive defenses protect against shame so deeply rooted that safety alone will not soften them. Schema Therapy explains why. The attachment injuries we try to repair are symptoms of unhealed schemas that keep recreating the wound.
This presentation teaches you how to recognize when schemas, not skills, drive the cycle and how to intervene where change truly begins. Through the Healthy Mode Triad, Connection Dialogues, and imagery rescripting for couples, participants will learn how to go beyond pattern management and foster real schema healing that lasts.
Peregrine Kavros, PhD
INTIMATE ALCHEMY WITH SCHEMA THERAPY
This presentation shows how the experiential techniques within a schema therapy framework can enrich the treatment of an individual or a couple while modifying sexually related mode clashes that arise internally and externally. Mode clashes can encourage avoidance or various forms of overcompensation, and result in misunderstandings surrounding one’s sexual self-identification, sexual orientation, or sexual frequency. How individuals and couples increase their sexual sense of self can vary, but through treatment transformation, intimate alchemy, multiple paths can be integrated into treatment. The integration of these paths vary depending upon the presentation of the client, but ultimately lead to a heightened awareness of a sexual self, strengthening the healthy adult’s identity and presence in the world. Learning Objectives: 1. Describe how one’s schemas and coping modes can limit self-awareness of one’s sexual identity and barriers to emotional and sexual intimacy. 2. Identify how authentic self-identification by the healthy adult mode can enhance and encourage emotional connection and intimacy. 3. Identify when Imagery Rescripting or Chair Mode Dialogue may be beneficial in healing prior trauma related to misidentification of sexual orientation.
Leonardo Wainer, MA
WHAT DO WE NEED AND STRIVE FOR? THE IMPORTANCE OF CORE EMOTIONAL NEEDS AND THE WORK WITH VALUES IN ST
Sexual struggles often reveal some of the deepest mode clashes in therapy. Within a Schema Therapy framework, experiential techniques such as imagery rescripting and chair dialogues can transform how individuals and couples understand and express their sexual selves. These clashes—whether rooted in avoidance, overcompensation, or confusion around identity and desire—often mask unmet needs and unhealed wounds that quietly shape intimacy.
This presentation explores how therapy can guide clients toward a more authentic, embodied sense of sexuality that strengthens the Healthy Adult’s confidence, connection, and presence. Participants will see how schema healing creates pathways for genuine sexual and emotional intimacy, helping clients reclaim desire as an expression of wholeness rather than defense.
Rita Younan, PhD
Gery Karantzas, PhD
THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTACHMENT THEORY IN SCHEMA THERAPY
Working with clients who face chronic relationship difficulties can challenge even the most experienced schema therapists. Beneath the surface, much of this struggle arises from early attachment injuries that continue to shape relational patterns in adulthood. Research shows that while around 35 to 40 percent of the general population have an insecure attachment style, this figure rises to nearly 80 percent in clinical populations. Individuals with insecure attachment styles are also two to three times more likely to endorse early maladaptive schemas.
This presentation bridges the science of attachment and Schema Therapy, showing how attachment patterns influence the formation, activation, and maintenance of schemas. Attendees will learn practical strategies for case conceptualization, assessment, and treatment that integrate attachment system dynamics with Schema Therapy techniques. The goal is to help clients move beyond resistance and toward secure connection and lasting relational change.
Lynda Perry, PhD
SCHEMAS OF THE NIGHT: PHANTOM OR REAL
Dream Material can give access to schemas, particularly the unconditional schemas of early childhood, that may be difficult for clients to emotionally connect with in sessions. Research from neurobiology, sleep and memory studies will be presented to explain how this happens and how the dreaming process is thought to be critical in the process of memory consolidation particularly in connecting current events with past experience. A case study of working with a dream of client A will be presented. The presentation will demonstrate how to connect the therapist’s in depth knowledge of the client’s schemas and modes from their case conceptualisation with dream material. Facilitating exploration of the dream through the emotional focus techniques of schema therapy can enable connection with the vulnerable child mode, often for the first time, as well as emotional expression of the schemas.
John Gasiewski, PhD
Paul DelGrosso, LCSW
THE ESTRANGEMENT “EPIDEMIC”: SCHEMA THERAPY AND THE CHALLENGES – AND OPPORTUNITIES – OF ESTRANGEMENT
Estrangement is one of the most complex and painful issues faced in therapy today. Recent research shows that more than one in four Americans report being estranged from a relative, a figure likely mirrored across other cultures. The emotional toll can be immense—feelings of grief, deprivation, and isolation—but for some, estrangement represents something different: a boundary that protects against further harm.
Through the lens of Schema Therapy, this presentation explores estrangement as both a potential wound and a form of healing. It examines the schemas and modes that drive cutoff and reconciliation, highlighting when repair may foster growth and when maintaining distance serves a healthy function.
Attendees will learn how to identify maladaptive versus protective forms of estrangement, conceptualize related schema and mode patterns, and guide clients toward either reconnection or adaptive limit setting. Integrating Schema Therapy with attachment-based family approaches, this session offers a nuanced map for helping clients navigate the tension between healing relationships and preserving self-protection.
Jeffrey Young, PhD
Closing Address by Jeffrey Young
For more than three decades, Dr. Jeffrey Young has transformed the landscape of psychotherapy. By integrating cognitive, experiential, attachment, and psychodynamic traditions, he created Schema Therapy—a model that reaches where traditional insight and short-term interventions could not.
In this special closing session, Dr. Young reflects on the origins of Schema Therapy, its global evolution, and the principles that have sustained its integrity and effectiveness across generations. He shares his hopes for the model’s future, its ongoing research, and the next frontiers in healing deep emotional wounds.
This intimate conversation is a rare opportunity to hear directly from the founder of Schema Therapy—whose vision continues to shape how therapists worldwide help clients rebuild trust, connection, and meaning in their lives.
Wendy Behary, LCSW
KEYNOTE: 35 YEARS OF THE SCHEMA THERAPY MODEL OF JEFFREY YOUNG
Sustaining the Integrity of the Core Model
How do we protect what makes Schema Therapy work while continuing to evolve? Developed by Dr. Jeffrey Young, Schema Therapy blends cognitive, attachment, experiential, and psychodynamic traditions into one of the most effective models for clients long considered untreatable. As it spreads across cultures and settings, the challenge is to keep its core alive while adapting to new needs.
This session explores the essence of what gives Schema Therapy its power—transforming schemas, healing unmet needs, and using the therapeutic relationship as a force for deep emotional repair. Join us as we honor Dr. Young’s legacy and examine how true innovation begins by staying rooted in the principles that heal.
KEYNOTE: THE EVIDENCE-BASED MODEL OF SCHEMA THERAPY BY JEFFREY YOUNG COMPARED WITH EMERGING MODELS
What makes Schema Therapy so effective with clients other treatments can’t reach? In this powerful session, Dr. Joan Farrell and Dr. Paul Kasyanik—renowned researchers, trainers, and international leaders—reveal the evidence that sets Schema Therapy apart. They’ll unpack the landmark trials that proved its effectiveness across complex disorders and examine what happens when new adaptations stray from that research base.
Discover what the data actually show about how real change happens and why the simplicity of Dr. Young’s original model remains its greatest strength. Walk away with renewed confidence in using a therapy that doesn’t just promise transformation but delivers it, session after session.
KEYNOTE: SCHEMA THERAPY: THE STATUS OF RESEARCH ON THE MODEL
What does the science really say about Schema Therapy today—and where is it headed next? In this keynote, Dr. Rita Younan and Professor Gery Karantzas, two of the field’s leading researchers, present a powerful overview of the latest global findings. Drawing on a bibliometric analysis of more than 300 studies and a recent Delphi consensus project, they’ll reveal where the evidence is strongest and where important gaps remain.
Attendees will gain an insider’s view of how Schema Therapy’s scientific foundation is evolving, including new insights into core needs, schema domains, and mechanisms of change. This keynote invites you to see the future of Schema Therapy through the lens of data, discovery, and innovation.
PARTS OF SELF IN SCHEMA THERAPY AND INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
Discover how Schema Therapy and IFS each understand the “parts” that shape our inner world. While both models explore internal dynamics, Schema Therapy offers a stronger theoretical base and empirical support for lasting change.
Joan Farrell, Ph.D. and Sara Trace, Ph.D. will show how each approach works with complex cases like borderline personality disorder and eating disorders, and demonstrate techniques to foster emotional awareness, integration, and healing.
Learning Objectives:
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Deepen understanding of clients’ “parts of self.”
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Apply mode interventions for meaningful change.
Wendy Behary, LCSW
TREATING COUPLES WITH ISSUES OF NARCISSISM
Few dynamics challenge therapists more than couples impacted by narcissism. Guided by Schema Therapy and supported by other evidence-based approaches, this session examines how unmet core emotional needs and early attachment wounds create powerful schema chemistry—the unconscious pull that drives attraction, conflict, and emotional pain in intimate relationships.
Wendy Behary, internationally known for her expertise in narcissism and Schema Therapy, reveals how these dynamics evolve into cycles of control, mistrust, and emotional withdrawal. Attendees will learn practical interventions to manage narcissistic modes, strengthen empathy, and reduce defensiveness. Schema Therapy’s unique integration of individual and joint sessions provides a pathway to repair, allowing both partners to grow while rebuilding safety and connection.
Jeff Conway, LCSW
THE CONCEPT OF BOUNDARIES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENMESHMENT AND UNDEVELOPED SELF SCHEMA
Healthy boundaries are vital for autonomy and emotional growth, yet they are often misunderstood. When boundaries become intrusive or confused, they can lead to schemas such as Enmeshment and Undeveloped Self. This presentation explores how clarity, mutual respect, and consistency foster healthy boundaries that support a person’s basic need for autonomy.
Through clinical illustrations, participants will learn how early boundary violations shape maladaptive schemas and how the therapist can use limited reparenting to restore safety, strengthen autonomy-supporting modes, and repair the Undeveloped Self. Practical techniques for identifying boundary ruptures, discussing them therapeutically, and modeling balanced, respectful boundaries that promote agency and connection will be offered.
Robin Spiro, LCSW
Judith Margolin, PhD
SCHEMA THERAPY FOR COMPLEX TRAUMA – SPECIAL TOPICS IN INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP TREATMENT
Lasting recovery from complex trauma depends on two essential elements: strengthening the Healthy Adult and building a genuine limited reparenting relationship. This session explores the core challenges that block both, offering clear, practical strategies for working through resistance, mistrust, and emotional disconnection.
In individual therapy, many clients struggle to engage with their Vulnerable Child mode, often responding with judgment or avoidance. Others carry deep schemas of Emotional Deprivation, Mistrust, or Subjugation that make it hard to trust the therapist’s care. Through vivid clinical examples, participants will learn how to repair these ruptures, foster safety, and nurture authentic healing.
The presentation also introduces a group-based Schema Therapy model for complex trauma. Attendees will see how to integrate mode work, experiential methods, and Healthy Adult modeling within a group to address shame, dissociation, and survival modes, transforming peer interactions into opportunities for reparenting and repair.
Ida Shaw, MA
TRANSLATING 50 PERSONALITIES INTO 5 MODES: SCHEMA THERAPY FOR DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER
Working with dissociative identity disorder (DID) can feel overwhelming, with clients presenting dozens of internal parts, each holding distinct memories, emotions, and coping strategies. This presentation introduces a powerful Schema Therapy model developed by Ida Shaw and Joan Farrell that helps both clients and therapists bring order to that inner world.
By consolidating numerous dissociative parts into a manageable set of schema modes, this approach provides a clear framework for integration and healing. Participants will see how child, coping, and critic modes can be identified and gradually transformed through experiential work, a strong therapeutic alliance, and the cultivation of Healthy Adult functioning.
This model has been successfully applied and studied in both inpatient and outpatient settings, showing significantly faster progress than traditional long-term treatments. Attendees will gain a structured, compassionate way to conceptualize and treat DID, learning interventions that bring stability, coherence, and renewed hope to even the most complex cases.
Pierre Cousineau, PhD
TRANSFORMING SCHEMAS THROUGH THE THERAPEUTIC MEMORY RECONSOLIDATION PROCESS
Neuroscience has revealed that the brain constantly predicts what will happen next, shaping perception, emotion, and coping responses. Schemas are part of this predictive system, driving behaviors designed to avoid emotional pain. When those predictions are rooted in trauma, coping modes become rigid and maladaptive.
This presentation introduces the Therapeutic Reconsolidation Process (TRP), an approach that integrates recent findings in predictive processing and memory reconsolidation with Schema Therapy. TRP helps therapists guide clients to transform deeply ingrained schemas at their emotional core, replacing avoidance with flexibility and healing.
Drawing from his upcoming book Schema Therapy for Memory Reconsolidation and Transformational Change (Routledge, 2026), Philippe Cousineau will show how this emerging neuroscience framework can enhance schema change, deepen experiential work, and revolutionize the way we understand transformation in psychotherapy.
Liz Lacy, LCSW
ADDICTED TO LOVE, STARVED FOR CONNECTION: USING SCHEMA THERAPY TO HEAL HYPER-SEXUALITY
This presentation explores how Schema Therapy offers a deeper, developmentally informed framework for treating hypersexuality. Rather than focusing solely on behavioral control, this approach targets the unmet emotional needs and early attachment disruptions that drive compulsive sexual patterns, helping clients build lasting change through the Healthy Adult self.
Using a comprehensive case example, participants will examine the formation and cycle of hypersexual modes, including the progression from pornography and fantasy to infidelity and sex work as attempts to soothe emotional pain. Common barriers to progress will be identified, along with specific Schema Therapy interventions that strengthen core needs for connection, validation, and self-regulation.
Therapists will leave with a clearer understanding of how to conceptualize hypersexual behaviors, identify underlying schemas such as Defectiveness, Emotional Deprivation, and Insufficient Self-Control, and apply practical techniques that mo
Joan Farrell, PhD
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE DAY
Dr. Joan Farrell closes the first day of the Symposium with an illuminating review of its most powerful moments and emerging themes. Drawing on her decades of clinical and research expertise, she will weave together key insights from the day’s presentations—tracing how they deepen our understanding of Jeffrey Young’s core model and its continued evolution.
This session distills the essential takeaways, highlights pivotal advances in clinical application and research, and honors the emotional and intellectual depth that defines Schema Therapy. Dr. Farrell’s reflections provide both integration and inspiration, setting the stage for another day of transformative learning.