Schema Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder

Book excerpt: This is the second edition of the book that sparked the current wave of interest in schema therapy. Although schema therapy was originally developed by Jeff Young in the USA, it was not until unprecedented outcome data was published from pioneering Dutch clinical trials with BPD patients that the clinical CBT community took serious notice. Schema therapy has now become one of the most popular forms of contemporary CBT. It has parallels to the ‘third wave’ of contextual behavioural science in that it develops traditional CBT in new directions, but while contextual behavioural science priorities behavioural techniques based on acceptance and mindfulness, schema therapy is more cognitive and draws on elements of experiential learning, object relations and psychodynamic therapy in addition to traditional CBT. The first edition of this book has sold more than 3,000 copies at a steady rate of around 500 units per year since 2009.