Schema Therapy Essentials

Executive Summary:

Schema Therapy has become one of the most influential developments in psychological therapy over the past two decades. Originally developed to work with complex and long-standing difficulties — including personality disorder, chronic depression, trauma, and entrenched relationship problems — it is now widely used across mental health services with a broad range of clients.

This Schema Therapy Essentials course provides a clear, practical, and clinically grounded introduction to the model, designed specifically for qualified and experienced mental health professionals.

To find out more or to contact APT click here.

Why Schema Therapy?

Many therapists recognise the limits of symptom-focused work when difficulties are deeply rooted, repetitive, and emotionally charged. Schema Therapy offers a powerful way of understanding:

• why the same problems keep recurring.
• why change can feel emotionally impossible, even when insight is good.
• why clients may swing between vulnerability, avoidance, compliance, anger, or emotional shutdown.

At its heart, Schema Therapy helps clinicians understand enduring emotional patterns, how they develop, and — crucially — how they can be modified in a safe, structured, and compassionate way.

To find out more or to contact APT click here.

What this course covers:

This course introduces the core concepts and clinical methods of Schema Therapy in a way that is accessible, practical, and immediately usable in day-to-day work.

You will explore:

• Early maladaptive schemas — what they are, how they form, and how they shape adult behaviour.
• Schema domains and common presentations seen in clinical practice.
• Schema modes — including vulnerable child, detached protector, punitive parent, and healthy adult.
• How schema modes explain rapid emotional shifts, self-sabotage, and interpersonal conflict.
• The therapeutic stance: empathy, validation, and appropriate limits.
• An introduction to key interventions, including imagery, mode dialogues, and experiential techniques.
• How Schema Therapy integrates with CBT, trauma-informed practice, attachment theory, and compassion-focused approaches.

Throughout the course, theory is consistently linked to real clinical examples, making the model feel grounded rather than abstract.

To find out more or to contact APT click here.

What makes this an APT course:

As with all APT training, this is not about teaching a rigid protocol or a new set of labels. Instead, the emphasis is on:

Clinical understanding, with minimal jargon.

Practical usefulness, as well as theoretical purity.

Helping you think more clearly and insightfully about each client.

To find out more or to contact APT click here.

Who should attend:

This course is suitable for:

• CBT therapists and practitioners wanting to extend their work with complex or entrenched difficulties.
• Mental health nurses, psychologists, counsellors, and psychotherapists.
• Clinicians working with trauma, personality disorder, chronic depression, self-harm, or relational difficulties.
• Practitioners interested in attachment-informed and compassion-focused approaches.

No prior training in Schema Therapy is required.

To find out more or to contact APT click here.

Who should attend:

This course is suitable for:

• CBT therapists and practitioners wanting to extend their work with complex or entrenched difficulties.
• Mental health nurses, psychologists, counsellors, and psychotherapists.
• Clinicians working with trauma, personality disorder, chronic depression, self-harm, or relational difficulties.
• Practitioners interested in attachment-informed and compassion-focused approaches.

No prior training in Schema Therapy is required.

To find out more or to contact APT click here.

What you’ll take away:

By the end of the course, you will:

• Have a clear conceptual map of Schema Therapy.
• Understand how schemas and modes operate in everyday clinical work.
• Feel more confident working with clients who feel "hard to shift".
• Have practical ideas you can integrate immediately into assessment, formulation, and intervention.

To find out more or to contact APT click here.

Format:

• Delivered in APT’s clear, engaging, and practical style.
• Richly illustrated with clinical examples.
• Suitable as a standalone introduction or as preparation for further Schema Therapy training.

To find out more or to contact APT click here.