Packages and Courses

I’ve Tried Therapy Before but Still Feel Stuck — What Next?

Schema Therapy + EMDR

Healing patterns at their roots, not just managing symptoms

Many people come to therapy feeling frustrated because they’ve understood their problems — yet still find themselves reacting in the same ways emotionally. If this resonates, Schema Therapy combined with EMDR may offer a different path forward.

The Reframe

Diagnoses help describe what you’re experiencing. Schema Therapy helps explain why these patterns formed — and why they keep repeating.

Your patterns are not flaws or failures. They are adaptations your nervous system developed when important emotional needs were not consistently met (Young, Klosko, & Weishaar, 2003).

From a Schema Therapy perspective, many long-standing difficulties are not about having “one disorder,” but about enduring patterns shaped by early experience.

How Patterns Form

Schema Therapy understands emotional difficulties as developing over time through a predictable pathway:

Unmet Core Needs → Schemas → Modes

Unmet Core Emotional Needs

Such as:

• Safety and protection

• Emotional connection and being understood

• Acceptance and belonging

  
  

Schemas (Deep Emotional Beliefs)

Schemas are deeply held emotional beliefs about yourself, others, and the world. They are not conscious thoughts — they are felt truths that shape how you interpret situations and relationships.

Examples include:

• “I’m unlovable.”

• “I don’t matter.”

• “People will leave or reject me.”

Because schemas are stored in emotional memory, they don’t feel like opinions — they feel like facts.

Modes (Emotional States or “Parts”)

Modes are different emotional states or “parts” of you that get activated when a schema is triggered. They tend to follow a predictable sequence:

• Vulnerable Child — feels hurt, scared, ashamed, lonely, or rejected

• Protector Modes — attempt to prevent further pain by overcompensating, withdrawing, attacking, pleasing, or staying in control

• Inner Critic — steps in with harsh, shaming, or punitive messages

Everyday example: A schema of “I’m unlovable” is triggered when a friend doesn’t reply to a message. The Vulnerable Child feels rejected and panicked. A Protector mode overcompensates by sending an angry or demanding text to regain control. The friend pulls back or avoids the interaction. The Inner Critic then attacks: “See? You always ruin things. You’re too much.”

What this teaches the nervous system: The original schema feels confirmed — “I really am unlovable” — even though the reaction was driven by protection, not truth.

This is how patterns become self-reinforcing, and why insight alone often isn’t enough to break them.

Why This Keeps the Pattern Going

Because the Vulnerable Child’s need for reassurance, safety, or connection is never directly met, the original schema (for example, “I’m unlovable” or “I’ll be rejected”) remains unhealed.

The Protector steps in by overcompensating or lashing out in an attempt to regain control. This often pushes others away — not because the schema is true, but because the behaviour is driven by fear rather than connection.

When the other person withdraws, the Inner Critic attacks with shame and self-blame — and the nervous system takes this as “proof” that the schema was right all along.

Because the system never experiences calm connection in the present, it never learns that the past is over — and the same pattern repeats.

Why “Think Positive” or Logic Alone Often Doesn’t Work

Schemas are stored in emotional memory, not just thoughts. When they’re activated, the nervous system responds as if the past is happening again.

This is why:

• Insight doesn’t always lead to change

• Reassurance doesn’t settle the reaction

• You may know something logically, yet still feel overwhelmed

As trauma research shows, the body responds before the thinking brain can intervene (van der Kolk, 2014).

How Schema Therapy + EMDR Helps

Schema Therapy

• Maps your patterns with compassion rather than judgement

• Identifies schemas, modes, and coping strategies

• Strengthens the Healthy Adult part of you — the part that can notice, reflect, and respond rather than react

EMDR

• Targets the memories and emotional learning that shaped these patterns

• Helps the nervous system update old beliefs and threat responses

• Reduces the emotional charge that keeps patterns repeating

Together, this approach works at both the psychological and nervous system level (Shapiro, 2018).

What Therapy Typically Looks Like

• Stability & Safety first: building awareness and stabilisation without pressure

• Understanding the roots: mapping schemas and modes together

• EMDR reprocessing: updating old emotional learning at a tolerable pace

• Strengthening the Healthy Adult: developing new emotional and behavioural choices

You remain in control throughout the process. Therapy is paced, collaborative, and responsive to you.

The Bottom Line

You are not broken. You adapted to what you were given.

Schema Therapy and EMDR help your nervous system learn that the present is safer than the past — so you can respond to life with more choice, calm, and self-compassion.

References

Young, J. E., Klosko, J. S., & Weishaar, M. E. (2003). Schema therapy: A practitioner’s guide. Guilford Press.

van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.

Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

Launching soon - RESILIENT ROOTS: EMDR Group for Parenting Stress in Second - Generation Refugees & Immigrants - Part 1 of 2 .

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DATES:

- Sunday 3rd Nov: 10am - 12pm

- Sunday 10th Nov: 10am - 12pm

- Sunday 24th Nov: 10am - 12pm

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LOCATION: Belmore, Sydney. 

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REGISTER YOUR INTEREST - via our Enquiry Form below

(booklet available upon request).

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Part 1. Resilient Roots: "Foundations" course - lays the groundwork for common experiences and an understanding of the hidden stress of growing up as second-generation refugee or immigrant and how this may impact on your parenting and everyday life. It also provides a foundation into EMDR Group Therapy.

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Part 2: "Going Deeper" course - continues the memory processing work, clears away "stuck" emotions and builds upon the skills learned in Part 1.

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BENEFITS:

- Find healing in the context of a supportive and safe group community with likeminded people.

- Improve/eliminate symptoms of stress, anxiety, PTSD, and mental unwellness, and embrace the parent you long to be.

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* Subsidised by Medicare

* $100 Out of Pocket Cost per 2-hr group session - with a MHCP from your GP ($166 without a MHCP). 

* Group size: 4 - 8

* Facilitated by Malika Ferry and Jane Bensen.

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If you are presenting as a private client, no referral letter is required.

• The cost of an appointment with Malika is $230 (per 50 mins via Telehealth) or $250 (per 50 min for in person sessions), which is payable at the end of the session by direct debit/autopayment via Halaxy, or direct deposit (payment must be received at least 24 hours before each appointment, or your appointment will be cancelled).

• Initial psychology/coaching appointments with Malika: 90 mins ($270 via Telehealth; $290 in office); or 60 mins ($240 via Telehealth; $260 in office).

• Enquire directly with Jane about her fees.

·         Requests for letter writing, report writing, or external communication to other professionals: Pro-rata charges based on time required. Services less than 15 minutes are free. We DO NOT write reports for Legal Matters/Court.

·         Medicare rebates are available with a valid Medicare referral through the Better Access initiative. Rebates are available for Telehealth sessions. You will need to obtain a written referral from your GP (or psychiatrist), specifying a referral for 6 sessions of individual psychological therapy. It must be dated before the first session you would like to claim a Medicare rebate for (if this is dated after the session, you will only be able to claim for the sessions after this date).

·         You may also be able to claim a rebate from your private health fund depending on your cover, however, it is not possible to claim both Medicare and Private Health Fund rebates for the same appointment.

·         Self-Managed NDIS clients are welcome.

·         Fees are reviewed yearly and maybe subject to change.

Medicare Rebates

• The Australian Government offers access to 10 rebated psychological sessions per calendar year (resets from January 1) for those with an eligible 'mental disorder'.

·         Medicare also currently offers eligible individuals a rebate for 6 -10 group ‘Psychological Therapy’ sessions (in addition to the 6-10 individual sessions) with a Medicare registered Psychologist.

·         If you already have a mental health care plan and a referral for individual, you will need to talk to your referring GP about adding group therapy to the care plan, and you will need another referral letter specifically for group therapy. At the end of a group therapy course, you will then receive a receipt for the classes that you attended, which you can send or take to a Medicare office and claim your refund.  Medicare also has an app you can use to claim your refund. See: Express Plus Medicare mobile app - Services Australia .

·         When you spend a certain amount in gap and out of pocket costs for medical services, you’ll reach the threshold. Then Medicare will pay you a higher Medicare benefit. Find out what the thresholds are on the Services Australia website and/or see Better Access to Mental Health Care initiative under Medicare | APS (psychology.org.au).

To claim and manage these rebated sessions, you will require the following:

1. Visit your GP to:

• Get a Mental Health Care Plan/Mental Health Treatment Plan (MHCP/MHTP)

• Get a Referral Letter (only psychology sessions dated on/after the date of your referral can be claimed).

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2. Send the Referral Letter to your psychologist. If your psychologist does not have a copy of your referral, they cannot process your referral for you, and you will have to pay the full fee of the session. Whilst the MHCP/MHTP contains valuable information, in order to process your rebate, only the Referral Letter is necessary.

3. Get a new Referral Letter from your GP when the allocated number of sessions have been used. Referrals are issued in blocks of sessions, usually the first referral block being for 6 sessions, requiring another GP visit to receive your remaining 4 sessions once you have completed your first referral (please check your referral for session amount, as this can vary). Your psychologist will need to send your referring GP a progress report.

4. Keep track of your rebated sessions. Freedom Psychology and Life Coaching does not assume responsibility for keeping track of your used Medicare rebates. If you have no more sessions remaining on your current referral, you have completed all 10 available sessions for the year or your referral is invalid, and you will not be eligible for a Medicare rebate - meaning you will be required to pay the full amount for the session. You can manage your Medicare claims online, via the app or by phone. For more information, visit the Medicare website.

5. Please note that while we do all we can to support you to claim a rebate, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have the correct referral information to do so.  While we will endeavour to process your Medicare rebate for you, on the rare occasion that this fails, we will provide you with a detailed receipt of your session to take to Medicare and claim the rebate yourself.

·         If you are uncertain whether your GP has completed all the necessary referral information for you to be eligible for a rebate, please confirm this with your GP or call Medicare on 132 011.  We cannot confirm these details for you.

·         If you would like more information about Medicare rebates for psychological services under the Better Access initiative, please discuss this with your GP, your mental health care provider, or visit https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/better-access-initiative  or https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/mental-health-care-and-medicare?context=60092 or https://psychology.org.au/psychology/medicare-rebates-psychological-services .

There is strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of EMDR Therapy delivered online, with research reporting that online EMDR therapy can be just as effective as in person sessions. Prior to commencing online EMDR therapy, your psychologist will work with you to make sure that you are emotionally ready to engage in trauma processing work, and that you have some self-care and emotional regulation tools to manage any distress that may arise.

Recommendations include:

1.       Ensuring a reliable and stable internet connection, the use of a hands-free device with a suitable/large screen to facilitate the required left-to-right eye movements for BLS.

2.       It’s also key to have a quiet, private uninterrupted space for memory processing sessions, free from potential disruptions such as people, pets, or device notifications.  

3.       Also ensure that a phone next to you during the session so that your psychologist can easily contact you if there are technological issues.

4.       Having tissues, water, and other comfort items close by can also help.