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Article

Between Self and Others: Relational Schemas as an Integrating Construct in Psychotherapy

Pages 22-38
Published online: 28 Dec 2017
 
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The author proposes the concept of relational schemas as a metatheoretical construct that can serve as a common principle for describing change in various schools of psychotherapy. Relational schemas encompass subjective experiences and behavior of self-in-relationship and can be thought of as blueprints for experiencing the self and relating to others. Schemas originate in early childhood but are revised and shaped anew throughout life. They can be nonverbal or verbal, implicit or explicit. They affect the way we establish interpersonal relationships and our relationship with ourselves. Activation of relational schemas can result in a display of various ego states, and such schemas can be adaptive or defensive. For deep personality change, it is important that change take place at the level of schemas. Psychotherapy promotes change and reconstruction of old defensive schemas and, at the same time, the development of new relational schemas through the relationship with a therapist. Relational schemas theory can serve as a framework for integrating different psychotherapy schools.

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Author information

Gregor Žvelc

Gregor Žvelc, Ph.D., is clinical psychologist and Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy). He is also an International Integrative Psychotherapy Trainer and Supervisor. He is director of the Institute for Integrative Psychotherapy and Counselling in Ljubljana, where he has a private practice and leads postgraduate trainings in integrative psychotherapy and transactional analysis. He is a guest trainer at the psychotherapy training institutes in Great Britain, Spain, and Bosnia. Please send reprint requests to Gregor Žvelc, Zg. Gameljne 55a, 1211 Ljubljana-Šmartno, Slovenia; e-mail: ; Web site: http://www.institut-ipsa.si/. This article was partially based on the author's 2007 doctoral dissertation: Integrativni model diadnih odnosov [Integrative model of dyadic relations], Department of Psychology, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. The author thanks the Eric Berne Fund for the Future (EBFF) for a grant for translation of part of the dissertation, out of which this article grew.