January 30, 2005
Emotional Deprivation
So, have you taken the test ? Maybe you couldn't you bear to pay attention that long. I did, but the subject was my neurosis, so it was a bit easier to stay interested. If you don't have the A-span to take the questionnaire, you can close your eyes and get an image of a time during your childhood when you were having difficulty with a parent. Flush it out, imagine what it was like to be little, imagine your parent's words, imagine what you would have liked for them to have said, and how that might feel to your child.
Now go through the list of maladaptive schemas, and see if you can match any themes in the story to a schema or two.
For example, here's my image. I am in kindergarten. My mother and I are upstairs in our house. I am sitting on the Moroccon ottoman in my mother's bedroom having my hair combed . We have a disagreement about where to clip the barrette on the side of my hair.
The barrette is a blue plastic bow. I would like it down farther than my mother would. There is conflict. I think I am "sassy" , but I blocked that. If there was anything my mother couldn't stand, it was "a sassy child". She was so angered by my noncompliance that she told me that she is going to run away from home. I remember walking to school afterward, listening to my own audible, shivery breath. I was very frightened. Needless to say, it was a most effective lesson in conflict avoidance.
Then I imagined what I might have liked to have happen. My mother would have looked at the way I wanted to wear my barrette, and said "What a wonderful idea. You look so cute with it that way. Let's fix your hair like this alot. " End of exercise
Next you examine the memory and see what schemas are present in the image. Well, it's quite a list.
abandonment (even though it didn't happen, the threat to counts. I asked.)
mistrust/abuse (perhaps)
emotional depriviation
defectiveness /shame (maybe)
subjugation
unrelentling standards
punitiveness
Here's the useful/painful part, the big question - how are these schemas still active in your adult life? (Assuming you have one, with all your difficulties.) Jeffrey Young prefers not to call them projections, but the schemas do tend to be lenses through which the present is experienced. It's helpful to know just how they are operating.
Since so many themes show up in my vignette, I will have to go grade my questionnaire. In doing so, I can see which schemas get high scores and are still operating, and which have been eradicated by my long term campaign to wrestle my neuroses to the ground. Then I'll read the sections of "Reinventing Your Life" that apply to my high scoring schema, and I will know exactly how to begin working for change .
I'll keep you posted, but I can see that I may have bitten off more than my attention span will accomodate, not to mention yours.
Photo note: Love that steam coming off the icicles. This is a photo of when you know your mother is furious with you, but she hasn't spoken to you in two days because, whatever you did to cause her displeasure, you are likely to do again. The icicle might melt, it might vaporize over time, or it could fall , driving a stake through your heart. Dealing with the tension in the meantime is anxiety provoking..
Posted by Dakota at January 30, 2005 07:24 AM