Registration by phone: +37067625787; via email: petroniene.mokymai@gmail.com
Live counseling for adults (I do not counsel couples, children and teenagers).
Duration: 50 min; office hours are from 9 am to 4 pm. Sessions can take place once per week, and after a few months – once every two weeks. Languages: Lithuanian, English, Russian.
The price of a live or video consultation is 70 eu. Intensive urgent consultation in a few days– a special price of 120 eu.
HOW DO I PROVIDE TREATMENT?
Schema therapy
No single theory or therapeutic approach is sufficient to solve deeper psychological problems. The choice of optimal solution strategy is aided by an integrative approach and practice that leverage the combinations of treatment options derived from various schools of psychotherapy. Schema therapy (Dr. Jeffrey E. Young, 1990) is an example of such an integrative treatment approach. The existential and humanistic trend is important here, as well as intervention techniques derived from gestalt therapy, transactional analysis, psychodrama are applied. Experiential and interpersonal therapy techniques are combined with a model of cognitive behavioral therapy, building upon the ideas derived from psychoanalytic theory of object relations.
Schema therapy aims at elucidating client’s childhood, adolescence experiences, perceiving them as an improper satisfaction of basic needs and the resulting causes of psychological problems; and it pursues to meet these needs in healthy ways. “Schema” refers to the activation of childhood wounds and a dysfunctional way of coping with them that was learned and associated with them. There are 18 schemas identified, e.g. abandonment, social isolation, mistrust, obedience, high standards, etc. A person can react to a schema by giving up in to it, believing that the world is really such as being conditioned by that schema; by escaping –avoiding situations in which a schema could manifest itself and overcompensating, for example by avoiding a defectiveness schema a person strives to obtain high results.
In reality, the activity of schemas manifests itself via a person’s mind states, referred to as “modes”. They are grouped into several categories, one of them is comprised of child modes: troubled – scared, lonely, abandoned, depreciated, etc. child modes, angry and impulsive child modes. A person being in a child mode is “overwhelmed” by sudden strong emotions, a person feels powerless, vulnerable, has difficulty with self-control. Dysfunctional parent modes are demanding, offensive inner critics, instigating the feeling of guilt. When an inner critic is active, a person blames himself or herself, feels inner tension. Dysfunctional coping modes: detached protector, disengaged self-comforter, hyper-control, grandiosity, attacking others, seeking attention –these modes are activated when we experience stress, protecting us from the feelings of a troubled child and from inner truth and a genuine connection with another person at the same time. Modes tend to interchange with each other. Healthy modes – a state of a happy child and a healthy adult are those states that should ideally change unhealthy modes.
How is schema therapy conducted? First, a therapist collects information and puzzles out schemas the client has, what modes are most common in his or her life, and how this relates to problems he or she has told about, and the client gradually learns to recognize modes and schemas that manifest during an hourly therapy session, as well as in his or her own life. “Limited reparenting” then takes place during the schema therapy – the therapist tries to communicate with the client in such a way that client’s needs which were not satisfied by the parents would be satisfied. Experiential therapeutic techniques that strongly affect emotions and the subconscious mind are also used, e.g. “rewriting the experience in the imagination” – with the help of the therapist in the imagination, the client returns to the difficulties experienced in childhood, recreates and emotionally deeply experiences new scenarios. Elements of psychodrama, cognitive therapy techniques are being applied. All techniques have a unified goal – to discard maladaptive coping, to heal a troubled inner child, to satisfy the needs of an inner child via the participation of a healthy adult.
I also perform schema therapy in a group! A combination of group and individual consultations is the most effective way to transform even very deep problems.
What problems do we solve with schema therapy?
- Relationship problems. Problems and discord among couples, children, parents; frequent conflicts when another partner seems to be “in fault of everything”, a persistent feeling that you are a “victim of circumstances”, not seeing a solution way out of the resultant situation, as well as other communication problems – not being able to find friends, inability to engage in teamwork, shyness, inability to defend one’s opinion or decision, searches for soul mates or significant others.
- Depression is a sad, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating and working, loss of interests, lack of energy and increased fatigue, normal work done “as if by force”. During a bout of depression, there are often obsessive reflections of an unpleasant and pessimistic content, twinges and negative approach towards oneself. Depression is not “self-neglect” or “laziness” for which it is often mistaken. At times of depression there is a decrease in self-esteem and self-confidence, a troublesome feeling of guilt, helplessness, a feeling that you are hopeless, irritability, annoyance.
- Anxiety and fears are difficulties during the course of which there are experiences of physical discomfort, internal tension, and difficulty in relaxing. The most common are social phobias – a fear of being in the center of people’s attention, a fear of the live theater stage, a fear of getting to know each other and dating, a fear of being depreciated, a fear of parting from and being left alone.
- The consequences of stress are difficulties resulting from severe traumatic stress or a slow and chronic stress. These can be a divorce, infidelity of a partner, raising a child, an illness, death of a loved one, difficulties at work, and so on. A person has experiences of internal discomfort, sometimes irritability, depressed mood, conflicting or impulsive behavior, tension, anxiety, increased fear, insomnia, obsessive thoughts, emotional “numbness”.
- And I also consult on many other issues, which are so diverse that it is impossible to list them. If you feel that you wish to come to me in particular, please contact me!