Mastering Change in Schema Therapy: Working with Rigid, Perfectionistic, Avoidant and Dependent Clients
Date- May 4 & 5 2026
Presenter- Remco Van der Wijngaart, Accredited Advanced Schema Therapist (The Netherlands) President Dutch Schema Therapy Society
Price- Early Bird- $559 (including food and refreshments for the 2 days)
Venue- The Lion Hotel, North Adelaide
Continuing Professional Development- 14 hours of active CPD
This advanced workshop offers schema therapists a focused opportunity to deepen their understanding and skill in working with clients who present with rigid, perfectionistic, avoidant, and dependent patterns—often seen in Cluster C personality presentations. Through experiential exercises, live demonstrations, and applied case material, participants will refine their use of empathic confrontation, experiential techniques, and mode work. The training will support therapists to navigate common stuck points, enhance motivational engagement, and respond flexibly to protective coping modes while strengthening the Healthy Adult mode
Learning Objectives:
Identify and differentiate schema modes commonly seen in rigid, perfectionistic, avoidant, and dependent clients, including how these modes function as survival strategies linked to core unmet emotional needs.
Develop tailored interventions for working with high-control and avoidance coping styles, including experiential strategies to bypass Detached and Overcontroller modes.
Strengthen therapist stance and use of empathic confrontation to challenge demanding and avoidant coping while preserving the therapeutic alliance.
Apply mode dialogues and imagery rescripting techniques to increase emotional accessibility and schema healing in clients with low insight or high resistance.
Recognize and manage therapist schema activations and countertransference reactions commonly evoked by Cluster C presentations, supporting clearer boundary-setting and more compassionate engagement.
About the Presenter
Remco Van Der Wijngaart (Advanced Schema Therapist and Trainer)
President Dutch Schema Therapy Society
Remco van der Wijngaart works as a psychotherapist and supervisor and educator for CBT and schema therapy. From 1996 onward he participated in treatment research on the effectiveness of schema therapy for borderline personality disorders. Together with David Bernstein he provided trainings on schema therapy in the forensic setting. He gives trainings, lectures and supervision on schema therapy worldwide and he has several DVD projects in the field of schema therapy. Van der Wijngaart was vice-president between 2016 and 2018 of the ISST (International Society of Schema Therapy).