Impaired Autonomy & Performance Schemas

Question 1

DEPENDENCE /INCOMPETENCE (DI)

Answer 1

Belief that one is unable to handle one’s everyday responsibilities in a competent manner, without considerable help from others (e.g., take care of oneself, solve daily problems, exercise good judgment, tackle new tasks, make good decisions).

Often presents as helplessness or anxiety, especially in new situations.

Question 2

ABANDONMENT / INSTABILITY (AB)

Answer 2

This schema refers to the expectation that one will soon lose anyone with whom an emotional attachment is formed. The person believes that one way or another, close relationships will end.

There is often a perceived instability or unreliability of those available for support and connection.

Involves the sense that significant others will not be able to continue providing emotional support, connection, strength, or practical protection because they are emotionally unstable and unpredictable (e.g. angry outbursts), unreliable, or erratically present; because they will die imminently; or because they will abandon the patient in favor of someone better.

Question 3

VULNERABILITY TO HARM OR ILLNESS (VH)

Answer 3

Exaggerated fear that imminent catastrophe will strike at any time and that one will be unable to prevent it. Fears focus on one or more of the following:
Medical Catastrophes: e.g., heart attacks, AIDS;
Emotional Catastrophes: e.g., going crazy;
External Catastrophes: e.g., elevators collapsing, victimized by criminals, airplane crashes, earthquakes.

Question 4

ENMESHMENT / UNDEVELOPED SELF

Answer 4

Excessive emotional involvement and closeness with one or more significant others (often parents or partners), at the expense of full individuation or normal social development.

Often involves the belief that at least one of the enmeshed individuals cannot survive or be happy without the constant support of the other. In some individuals, there is a strong desire to escape the enmeshment, and a negative view of significant others as smothering, intrusive, lacking healthy boundaries, or refusing to accept that their child or partner has different needs or desires.

Enmeshed individuals often lack a distinct and separate identity, and often report feeling empty, of floundering, and having no direction in life.

Question 5

FAILURE (TO ACHIEVE)

Answer 5

The belief that one has failed, will inevitably fail, or is fundamentally inadequate relative to one’s peers, in areas of achievement (school, career, sports, etc.). Often involves beliefs that one is stupid, inept, untalented, ignorant, lower in status, less successful than others, a loser, etc. Can be distinguished from Defectiveness because insecurity is primarily focused on achievement and success, rather than on social inadequacies, or a core sense of being unacceptable and unlovable.

Question 6

SUBJUGATION / INVALIDATION (SI)

Answer 6

Excessive surrendering of control to others because one feels coerced, and is unrealistically afraid of the negative consequences of asserting one’s rights and expressing feelings– submitting to avoid anger, retaliation, or abandonment. The two major forms of subjugation are:

(1) Subjugation of needs: suppression of one’s preferences, decisions, and desires.

(2) Subjugation of emotions: suppression of emotions, especially anger.

Usually involves the perception that one’s own desires, opinions, and feelings are not valid or important to others. Frequently presents as excessive compliance, combined with hypersensitivity to feeling trapped. Generally, leads to a buildup of anger, manifested in maladaptive symptoms (e.g., passive-aggressive behaviors, uncontrolled outbursts of temper, psychosomatic symptoms, withdrawal of affection, “acting out,” substance abuse).