I use the phrase “Solutions tailored to fit you” as a way to “brand” my work. These words also have a very significant clinical implication.

Solutions are ordinarily what people seek in counseling and psychotherapy. The person will have tried other ways to solve their problem. They may have used anger to push people away from a sensitive area. They may have become depressed, e.g. hopeless, about finding a solution. They may have self medicated to hide from the pain of an issue. The options are infinite.

One common place to look for solutions is in self-help books and psycho-education in general. I have referenced several books on this blog. Anger management classes teach about anger in general and present an array of tools. Work books on anxiety have an amazing array of tools. Yet, the question remains, which tool for which situation? What will work for me?

Psychodynamic theory holds that people develop response patterns to situations. The patterns can be called models, scripts, or more technically, schemas for how a person will respond to the world. When working with clients I frequently talk about the “scripts” that they follow. Each script was developed in response to a specific situation. If the script worked, or at least seemed to work, it was placed in the inventory of scripts available for dealing with life. When new, related situations arise an old script is rolled out, perhaps modified slightly and then applied.

As a baby, the script or schema may have been to coo and wiggle to gain affectionate attention. As adults, we just smile and look friendly. Crying may have been used to let someone know we were hungry or uncomfortable from a dirty diaper. Later we just complain about work, hopefully without so much crying. Some scripts or models were relatively simple like when we learned how to button our shirt and how to tie our shoes. Later we learned more complex scripts like what to wear to gain peer approval. Over the years we learned many scripts or schemas. We developed scripts for relating to friends, scripts for relating to significant others, scripts for hiding from our own pain. We put together several scripts and developed elaborate “models” of how to carry out more complex tasks in the world. We may have taken on the “role” of parent using a model developed from many scripts. We may have a model for how to be a “model” employee, and so on.

Any one person has hundreds or likely thousands of schemas, scripts, roles, and models for how to interact with the world. Many of these scripts work quite well. Hopefully, most work quite well. One of the primary approaches I use is to look for the “patterns” of what we do. The activation of schemas in a patterned way is dynamic. All of our models operate dynamically. We do not operate in a static world. Our minds are not static. We use schemas smoothly, constantly, interactively. They are mostly outside of our conscious awareness and their activation is mostly unconscious. The “dynamic” in psychodynamic is about how we order and activate the various schemas we use to interact with a dynamic world.

Unfortunately sometimes the scripts that we roll out do not work well in a particular situation, or do not work well in conjunction with each other. We may have a script to please other people. That in itself is socially useful. In order to be pleasing, we may use the script that says do what other people expect. Since we operate in a dynamic world, some of our real actions may not be what other people expect. These actions were activated by another conflicting script. Do we let someone know what we did and violate the please people schema? Do we hide what we did and maybe violate an honesty schema? Do we stop doing what we did and violate the action schema. The answer may be adaptive, or it may be maladaptive. A persistent answer that does not work may get us into what is called a cyclical-maladaptive-pattern (CMP).

Mostly scripts have been built up without conscious awareness. We do things, they work, and sub-consciously the script has been added to our inventory. It is no surprise then that when scripts don’t work it takes some effort to identify what is going on. The actual schema is hidden from our consciousness.

With some systematic effort, a therapist and client can “team-up” and develop an understanding of the dynamics of situations that are causing a problem. With this understanding, a specific script or set of scripts can be targeted for change. Out of the thousands of possibilities for change, a relatively small change in a script can make a very big difference. Learning to ask instead of manipulate can be very powerful. Learning to listen first might allow for being heard later. Knowing that your angry response is used to push people away from your secret can make a big different. That is not to say that making even a small change is easy. But making a small “targeted change” is much easier than attempting a book’s worth of change.

So, rather than beginning with chapter one of our self-help book and proceeding through all of the exercises in hopes that one will work, finding the script that does not work allows for a targeted change. The change needed is specific to one person and may be in Chapter 20 of this book, or in Chapter 1 of a different book, or the solution may be unique to the person and not in a book.

More succinctly, in brief-psychodynamic therapy I look for patterns that were learned in the past, are maintained in the present, and no longer work as desired. The changes I help the client to make are “tailored” to their individual set of patterns (script; schema; model; role; etc.). Said more succinctly yet, “Solutions tailored to fit you.”