What’s Your Style? Avoid, Surrender, Overcompensate: Schema Therapy.

Example

Ari is 22. Sometime in his growing up, he developed the idea that he is “unlikeable”.

Here are 3 coping strategies Ari might use for coping with this painful thought

1. Avoiding getting into situations that trigger the thought

For example, Ari might avoid intimate relationships.

2. Surrender

When Ari has interpersonal conflict situations, his unlikeableness schema gets triggered.

When this happens, he “surrenders” or “gives in to” the schema.

Instead of balancing the three interpersonal goals of a) getting what he wants, b) keeping his self respect, and c) maintaining his relationship with the other person, he throws these goals out the window and acts like a … (insert your swearword of choice)

3. Over-compensate

In some circumstances, Ari goes overboard in trying to get other people to like him.

In their own way, all 3 of these coping styles function in a way that keeps Ari thinking he’s unlikeable.

If he avoids intimate relationships, he never gets the chance to see that some people do like him.

When he surrenders, his unlikeableness becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

When he overcompensates, sometimes other people find his behaviour annoying. Other times, people do like him but having used the overcompensation behaviour leaves him with the implicit impression that they like him because of the overcompensation behaviour. He never gets the opportunity to experience that if he didn’t do the overcompensation nothing bad would happen/people would like him anyway.

How these 3 coping styles might relate to you?

Rather than “unlikeable,” you might have a different problem schema. For example, you think you’ve failed more than you should.

Do you tend to

1. avoid situations that trigger this thought,
2. surrender, and/or
3. overcompensate?

Many people I see use a combination of all 3 coping styles.

Which of your behaviours could be classified in each of the 3 categories?

The avoid/surrender/overcompensate model of coping comes from a therapy called Schema Therapy. You can take an online schema test Young Schema Questionnaire Online. A self help book based on Schema Therapy is available below