Schemas, goals, values, and the pursuit of happiness (with Jeff Perron)
Spencer Greenberg speaks with clinical psychologist Jeff Perron about how human suffering often stems from conflicts between our schemas and values. They discuss identifying these ingrained patterns and developing a "values-based compassionate self" to navigate inner critics and vulnerable emotions, fostering a life of meaning and happiness.
Deep Dive Analysis
19 Topic Outline
Introduction to Suffering, Schemas, and Values
Defining Schemas: Origin of Thoughts and Cognitive Biases
Defining Values: Qualities for a Desired Life
Happiness as the Ultimate Intrinsic Goal
Understanding Suffering: Conflict Between Schemas and Values
Schema Therapy: An Extension of CBT
Common Maladaptive Schemas and Their Development
Schemas Formed in Adulthood and Traumatic Events
Identifying and Working with Schemas
The Inner Critic and the Vulnerable Child
The Compassionate Values-Based Self
Applying the Compassionate Self: An Example
Integrating Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Change
Cross-Validating Happiness Principles: Psychology, Buddhism, Stoicism
Shared Wisdom: Gratitude, Mindfulness, Embracing Uncertainty
Unique Insights from Ancient Traditions: Impermanence and Craving
Unique Insights from Modern Psychology: Flow and Self-Esteem
Practical Steps to Identify Your Schemas
Distinction Between Intrinsic Values and Goals
9 Key Concepts
Schemas
Underlying patterns of thinking, assumptions, and rules about how the world works and one's place in it, often developed in childhood, that influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. They are optimized for survival and attachment in early life, not necessarily for adult happiness.
Values (Jeff Perron's Definition)
The qualities a person wants their life to be about, often explored across various domains like social life. They are evaluated based on their effectiveness in pursuing a broader goal, such as happiness.
Schema Therapy
An extension of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that posits specific maladaptive schemas, primarily rooted in childhood experiences, which contribute to suffering by creating rules and assumptions that are counterproductive to adult happiness and well-being. It aims to identify and change these schemas.
Unrelenting Standards Schema
A schema where an individual learns that approval, support, and recognition are contingent on meeting very high standards of behavior, often leading to self-denial, perfectionism, and exhaustion, even at the expense of personal needs or relationships.
Approval Seeking Schema
A schema where an individual places undue emphasis on gaining others' approval, believing that not having it means they are doing something wrong. This can lead to prioritizing others' needs over one's own and making decisions based on external validation.
Inner Critic
An internal narrator or voice that monitors one's performance against learned rules, assumptions, and standards, often delivering demanding, pushing, or guilt-inducing messages, and suggesting punishments for perceived shortcomings.
Vulnerable Child
An internal mode representing one's emotional needs, often experienced as feelings of being overwhelmed, insecure, or unsafe, akin to a child's raw emotional state. It embodies the emotional wiring developed in childhood to ensure safety and attachment.
Compassionate Values-Based Self
An aspirational internal figure developed in schema therapy that possesses clarity on one's values, effectively counters the inner critic's demands, and appropriately soothes and supports the vulnerable child, guiding behaviors towards a meaningful and happy life.
Flow
A state of deep absorption and engagement in an activity that is just on the cusp of one's competence, where time seems to disappear. It is considered a core component of positive engagement and happiness in modern positive psychology.
9 Questions Answered
A schema is a pattern of thinking and assumptions, often developed in childhood, that dictates how we see the world and operate within it, influencing our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Human suffering often arises from conflicts between these survival-optimized schemas and our adult values.
Values are the qualities a person wants their life to embody. While there's no universal 'right' value, their effectiveness is judged by whether they help achieve goals like happiness, which Jeff defines as encompassing meaning, positive engagement, pleasure, and purpose.
Schemas develop in childhood as rules for survival and gaining caregiver approval, not for happiness. As adults, these ingrained rules can become counterproductive, hindering healthy relationships, self-esteem, and the pursuit of meaning and happiness.
Common examples include the 'unrelenting standards schema,' where approval is tied to meeting high standards, and the 'approval seeking schema,' where one prioritizes others' approval, often at the expense of personal needs.
The inner critic is the voice of the schema's rules and judgments, constantly monitoring performance. The vulnerable child represents the raw emotional needs and insecurities, also shaped by schemas, that require validation and support.
By developing a 'compassionate values-based self'—an aspirational internal figure that can effectively challenge the inner critic's demands and appropriately soothe the vulnerable child, thereby guiding actions towards one's chosen values.
Key principles include practicing gratitude, mindfulness (not overly engaging with mind chatter), not putting undue stock in others' opinions, and embracing uncertainty and impermanence.
Ancient traditions like Buddhism and Stoicism emphasize embracing impermanence and reducing craving, while modern positive psychology uniquely highlights concepts like 'flow' (deep engagement) and building 'healthy self-esteem' through appreciating and applying strengths.
Start by reflecting on recurring patterns or 'friction points' in relationships or work where things aren't going as desired. These patterns often point to underlying belief systems or assumptions (schemas) that are getting in the way of living one's values.
23 Actionable Insights
1. Cultivate Compassionate Self
Develop an aspirational internal figure who clearly understands your values, effectively counters your inner critic, and knows how to soothe and support your vulnerable child, guiding your actions.
2. Counter Inner Critic
When your inner critic is active, challenge its judgments and punitive statements by aligning your actions with your values and focusing on effort and genuine intent rather than perfection or fear of failure.
3. Soothe Vulnerable Child
Acknowledge and validate your vulnerable child’s fears and insecurities with empathy, offering reassurance, permission for imperfection, and the promise of necessary breaks.
4. Integrate Change Methods
Use the compassionate self to challenge negative cognitions, soothe emotional distress, and align behaviors with values, ensuring a holistic approach to schema change.
5. Connect Patterns for Change
Avoid treating each schema activation as an isolated event; instead, link individual situations and “bus dialogues” to broader patterns of thinking, believing, and relating to the world to facilitate lasting change.
6. Identify Problem Patterns
Pinpoint recurring issues or areas where life isn’t going as desired by examining specific situations where you feel activated, and noting your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
7. Use Schema Questionnaires
Utilize validated tools like the Young Schema Questionnaire to rank statements that align with your schemas, helping to identify underlying patterns of thinking and behavior.
8. Combine History, Schemas
Integrate identified problem patterns, schema questionnaire results, and a detailed background history (e.g., upbringing, parental relationships) to piece together and confirm your schemas.
9. Schemas Block Happiness
Recognize that schemas often manifest as rules and assumptions that prevent you from pursuing happiness, meaning, and desired values, making their identification crucial for change.
10. Understand Inner Voices
Identify the “inner critic” as the voice enforcing your schema’s rules and the “vulnerable child” as the embodiment of your emotional needs, both shaped by your schemas.
11. Happiness Through Selfless Action
Understand that the highest form of happiness involves engaging in selfless pursuits, contributing to your community, and fostering positive relationships, rather than purely individualistic hedonism.
12. Thrive to Reduce Suffering
Focus on understanding and implementing behaviors that contribute to thriving and happiness, as this proactive approach can more effectively pull you away from what causes suffering.
13. Happiness: A Side Effect
Understand that happiness is not a direct goal to be pursued, but rather a positive side effect that emerges from aligning your life and behaviors with effective values and practices.
14. Practice Gratitude, Savoring
Cultivate gratitude for what you have, appreciate the basics and little things in life, and actively savor experiences like food, music, arts, or literature to enhance well-being.
15. Mindfulness: Disengage Critic
Develop mindfulness to avoid overly engaging with the constant chatter of your mind, particularly the negative voice of your inner critic, as an imperative for well-being.
16. Disregard Others’ Opinions
Focus on your own values and what you can control, firmly choosing not to place undue importance on what other people think or on gaining their approval.
17. Embrace Uncertainty, Impermanence
Accept the inherent uncertainty of life and the impermanence of emotions, sensations, and circumstances, letting go of the desire to control what cannot be controlled or to cling to things that will inevitably change.
18. Reduce Craving Mindfully
Be mindful of and actively pull back from craving, recognizing that excessive desire for specific outcomes or feelings can contribute to suffering.
19. Exercise Personal Strengths
Identify your personal strengths and actively apply them, especially in ways that have an altruistic component, to foster a sense of mastery, contribution, and connection with others.
20. Reflect on Friction Points
Identify schemas by reflecting on recurring patterns of friction or dissatisfaction in work (e.g., constant grind, never feeling good enough) or relationships (e.g., retraction, false starts, awkwardness).
21. Focus Values, Not Labels
Instead of fixating on precise schema labels, focus on identifying your core values and then determining what recurring patterns or internal rules are preventing you from living those values.
22. Understand CBT Model
Recognize that your thoughts mediate between situations and your emotions/behaviors; this understanding helps identify where reactions originate.
23. Evaluate Value Effectiveness
Assess if your chosen values and behaviors are truly effective in achieving your ultimate goals, such as happiness, by examining the evidence for their impact.
5 Key Quotes
The ways that us as humans go about pursuing happiness, especially because we're not optimized for happiness, we're optimized for things like reproductive success and prestige as it relates to reproductive success. The ways that we're going about our pursuit of happiness are often not effective.
Jeff Perron
I think of this as the amazing coincidence about humans that seeking to do good in the world is often well aligned with like improving our own well-being. But it doesn't have to be the case.
Spencer Greenberg
Our schemas come from our developmental environment and our developmental environment is all about getting protection and attachment from our caregivers, especially very early on. It's not about happiness. It's not about the pursuit of values.
Jeff Perron
There's this somewhat of a paradox, which I've observed, which is that people who are really happy tend to not focus that much on their happiness, whereas people who are really unhappy seem like much more obsessed with it.
Spencer Greenberg
Happiness is a side effect, right? It's a side effect of getting these other parts of your life and your behaviors right.
Jeff Perron
1 Protocols
Navigating Internal Modes for Values-Aligned Living
Jeff Perron- Identify the 'bus of your life' and your current position (e.g., driving towards a goal).
- Recognize the 'inner critic' in the seat behind you, delivering judgments, demands, or guilt.
- Identify the 'vulnerable child' in the seat next to you, expressing fear, anxiety, or other raw emotions.
- Envision your 'compassionate values-based self' – an aspirational figure with clarity on values.
- Have the compassionate self address the inner critic, countering unreasonable standards and judgments with reason and firmness.
- Have the compassionate self address the vulnerable child, validating their feelings, offering soothing support, and setting appropriate boundaries (e.g., 'I know this is hard, you don't have to be perfect, just try your best').
- Allow the compassionate self to guide your actions, aligning them with your values despite internal resistance.