Learn to become a loving parent to yourself

It’s lovely to watch attentive parents tenderly caring for their babies – they jump at their squawks, soothe them as they screw up their fists and faces in outrage and anticipate their needs before they have the chance to voice them. Witnessing moments of calm and solicitude like these are a balm for the heaviness and anger that the world can throw out at times. In contrast, though, many people feel unable to extend this type of care towards adults – whether that’s the self, loved ones or others.

Schema therapy

The relationship between infants and their primary caregivers, and the way infants express and signal their need for care, is important. At the core of schema therapy lies an acknowledgement that everyone has basic psychological needs, just as they do physical ones. While physical requirements may be for warmth, food and shelter, psychological needs include safety and acceptance, attachment, limits, spontaneity and play, and autonomy and agency. When these core needs aren’t met, people develop schemas (that is, underlying belief structures with associated emotions). These might be: ‘People will always leave me’ or ‘I’m not good enough’. These difficulties can pervade all that a person does and manifest in several symptoms, including anxiety or low mood when there’s a threat of loss. Schema therapy is about gently unearthing these patterns, slowly correcting them, noticing which needs were not met and learning to identify and meet them now.