Schema Mode Therapy: The Avoidant Protector

hey everyone jessica clinical psychologist from the sitecollective.com and we are doing another schema video today okay i've got four coming today so make sure you hit subscribe to follow up get on notifications as we release them over the next few weeks we are starting today with the avoidant protector mode now this is one of the flight modes if you don't understand what i'm talking about make sure you go back and watch the schema overview video it's got the big rainbow arches on the board that'll give you an overview of where we're talking about but these ones are going to focus simply on the flight strategies so starting with avoidant protector the function of this one here for the avoidant protector is to avoid engaging in any activity situation relationship where there's any opportunity for failure judgment rejection or stuffing it up right the avoidant protector mode it is it's a it's a avoidance strategy which is why it's considered under flight this is more of a behavioral avoidance and what we see with some of the other ones like detach protector is more of a psychological avoidance you can be in the room but the lights are on nobody's home whereas the avoidant protector is simply people don't show up for stuff the scheme is associated with this quite often we see some abandonment schemers being activated with the sense of well kind of i'm going to reject you before you reject me kind of i'm not going to go there i'm not going to risk getting engaged in a relationship or a situation where i could be abandoned from it defectiveness and failure usually also come up for the same reasons um and the social isolation which kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because i'm scared that if i go then i'm going to be judged or people won't like me or people laugh at me so i won't go and then because i haven't gone well now i'm all alone and i'm isolated and i don't have any connection and so the self-fulfilling prophecy the social isolation just gets more and more entrenched the triggers they're pretty broad right it's really any situation where there is a risk of being judged by others this could be a work meeting where you've got to go kind of you're sitting at a team meeting and you've got to present some information or you're worried that you might be criticized for something or you might be judged for something it could be going to a party or a social gathering it could be kind of trying to get involved in dating it could be doing like a public speaking event people with a strong avoidant protector aren't going to show up just they'll cancel plans and this is where we see the awareness of what does this actually look like it's a strong behavioral they'll cancel plans or they just won't make plans in the first place because then they've got nothing to cancel it's the i don't want to i'm too busy other people laugh at me i'll stuff it up why bother trying anyway um it's i don't want to take any risks with meeting new people they might be okay dealing with this small kind of circle of their own friends or their family where there's been enough establishment of trust that i think i can be kind of myself with these people or these people are safe enough that they're not likely to reject me so it's okay but new people no no that's uncontrollable and i don't know what it's like going into new situations moving into kind of new college or university going into a new work environment could be really really really troublesome for the avoidant protector because the urges run hide don't show up really strong procrastination response with the avoidant protector as well with a sensible if i don't try then i can't fail um and we can often see some kind of giving up of oh well i gave it a go but it didn't really work so i'm leaving now and then maybe i'll go but i'm only going to stay for 10 minutes and they give themselves an out they're kind of looking for the exits they're doing their strategizing for how am i going to get out of here the second that things start to get uncomfortable or difficult or too challenging now the maladaptive component of this schema mode is pretty obvious if you're avoiding everything or at least most things your world gets smaller you're missing out on connection you're missing out on relationships you're missing out on opportunities to try stuff and learn that you can actually do things without being judged or without being criticized you don't give yourself the opportunity to to succeed because you're so caught up in the fear of what would happen if you were to fail and then because you're not trying you kind of do fail in the fact that you weren't successful in completing the task or engaging the activity because you never tried in the first place so then we get the reinforcement of the effectiveness scheme or the failure scheme where i always stuff it up i never get it right because you don't give yourself the opportunity to and from all of that people i call it d skill i don't know if that's actually a word but it sounds good to me where because you're not using your skills you lose your confidence and your ability to use your skills it's you lose it's kind of the whole like learning to ride a bike thing but then if you stop riding a bike for 10 years you get rusty and you kind of got to figure out how to balance again and what i've actually seen outside of the realm of schema therapy is so many people are struggling with this because of covert i've got friends who have no mental health stuff no mental health issues no kind of maladaptive schemers generally but because they've gone into long-term isolation with covert they haven't been going into work everything's been via zoom or their social activities got shut down while we went into lockdown and then having to kind of re-emerge into the world and engage with people it's like how do i do this again and that's one of the biggest problems with the avoidant protector is because you're not trying the skills very often so when you are put in a situation where you have to show up you have to actually engage then you've lost the confidence on how to do it because you haven't used the skill for so long all right the crossover effect honestly social anxiety and agoraphobia okay but they're not really schema terms but that's kind of is a differential diagnosis or the actual diagnosis that's what we'd be seeing um also be mindful of the detached protector in here so the avoidant protector is the behavioral avoidance the detached protector as i said earlier is the psychological avoidance and to be honest i can see people kind of doing both so where they can't avoid and they have to attend then they might go into detach protector um and when they can avoid then it's more the avoidant protector says just not showing up what they need well this one's pretty obvious what they need is attachment but they're scared to go and get the attachment they're scared to put themselves out there and risk the rupture of the attachment but really what they desperately need is attachment and in a way where there's some safety in a way where there's kind of the guaran to the best of your ability the guarantee that okay come and sit with us we're not going to judge you we're not going to reject you we're not going to criticize you this is a safe space for you to be a part of all right they also need to tap into the spontaneity and play around trying new things and expanding their interests there also needs to be some boundaries where you set limits for yourself on how much you allow yourself to avoid and this is where your healthy adult mode comes in right so you've got the vulnerable child mode going i'm scared i'm worried that people are going to criticize me the avoidant protector going don't worry i've got a plan for this we're just not going problem solved what you need is that healthy adult to kind of step in and go hang on a minute if we avoid everything then we're not engaging with the world we risk rupturing all of our connections by not showing up or not connecting and even kind of not responding to text messages or emails we've got to do something here let's make a plan on how we could do little bits at a time while we build up our confidence which is effectively just exposure hierarchy right it's the graded exposure component so you need to use your healthy adult mode to help you find the courage to engage in the exposure task and where you can get help from others is if you do have some safe connections then talk to them and let them know one how much anxiety is provoked when you are invited to it kind of out to dinner at last minute because i haven't had time to prepare i haven't had time to kind of get myself ready for this i need more time to catastrophize about it before i show up because for some reason people find that helpful other people sitting down with others and going right these are the things that i usually avoid i want to stop avoiding this can you help me and where you get that help from others is they give you a compassionate kick up the ass to say right you've been avoiding this for too long i'm not taking no for an answer anymore put your shoes on we're going out right but that needs to be done with compassion that needs to be done with boundaries that needs to be done with people where you've already got a safe connection but your healthy adult needs to kind of set the lead on this to say to other people this is something i'm working on this is something i need help with okay i think that's all from me today on the avoidant protect us as i said hit that subscribe button and we will follow up with a few more on the flight modes for schemer therapy thanks guys

Channel: the PSYCH collective

Views: 13,099

Keywords: Avoidant personality, Avoidant protector mode, Avoidant schema, Avoidant schizoid, Schema modes explained, Schema therapy explained, avoidant attachment style, avoidant personality disorder, borderline personality, borderline personality disorder, bpd, jess o'garr, kati morton, mental health, psychology, schema, schema mode therapy, schema modes, schema therapy, schizoid personality disorder, thepsychcollective

Id: 6kh3HpK846w

Length: 8min 47sec (527 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/BlessedLightning]

Is avoidant protector just what they call AvPD outside of the US?