What is deliberate practice in Schema therapy?

Deliberate practice in Schema therapy is structured, repetitive rehearsal of specific clinical skills, such as chair work setup, limited reparenting language, or imagery rescripting transitions, with feedback from a peer or supervisor. It differs from didactic learning because the therapist actually practices the skill under simulated conditions rather than only studying or discussing it.

Who is this training for?

Licensed clinicians, supervisors, and graduate students who already have some exposure to Schema therapy and want a practical method for building their experiential skills. It is also useful for supervisors who want to introduce deliberate practice into existing group supervision.

Do I need to be a certified Schema therapist to use these exercises?

No. The exercises are designed to be useful at multiple training levels. Therapists earlier in their Schema therapy journey tend to get the most value from chair work setup and limited reparenting drills. More advanced clinicians can use imagery rescripting and mode dialogue rehearsals.

Is the webinar really free?

Yes. The webinar is free, unedited, and free to share with colleagues, students, and supervisees. Sentio University is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and releases its training resources openly.

How is this different from a standard Schema therapy certification training?

Standard Schema therapy training teaches the model. Deliberate practice trains the skill. The two are complementary. This webinar shows how to add rehearsal-based skill building to the training pathways most clinicians already use, including certified Schema therapy programs.

Deliberate Practice in Schema Therapy

A free training from Sentio University, co-authored by Wendy T. Behary, Joan M. Farrell, Tony Rousmaniere, and Alexandre Vaz.

Schema therapy is one of the harder modalities to teach through reading alone, because so much of its clinical work lives in chair work, imagery rescripting, and the moment-by-moment use of limited reparenting. This page collects Sentio University's free deliberate practice resources for Schema therapists: a full webinar with Wendy T. Behary and Joan M. Farrell, two of the model's most senior international trainers, in dialogue with Tony Rousmaniere and Alexandre Vaz. The recording is unedited, free to share, and designed to be paired with a real supervisor or study partner. Below the video you will find structured guidance on how to run the exercises, presenter bios, and a short FAQ.

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What you will learn

This training is structured around five concrete skill targets that supervisors and peer practice groups can rehearse together.

How to structure deliberate practice exercises around Schema therapy's core interventions
How to rehearse limited reparenting language without losing therapeutic frame
How to introduce imagery rescripting safely in skill-building contexts
How to fit chair work techniques into your existing supervision rhythm
How senior trainers think about schema mode work in early-career therapists

Watch the webinar

Deliberate Practice in Schema Therapy, with Wendy T. Behary, Joan M. Farrell, Tony Rousmaniere, and Alexandre Vaz. Free to share.

This webinar accompanies the APA book Deliberate Practice in Schema Therapy by Behary, Farrell, Vaz, and Rousmaniere, part of The Essentials of Deliberate Practice series. The book contains the full set of exercises demonstrated in the video. Buy on Amazon.

How to use this with peers or supervisors

The webinar is most useful when paired with structured practice afterward. We recommend a two-session model. In the first session, watch the recording with a peer or supervision group and pause at each demonstrated exercise to discuss how it would fit your current caseload. In the second session, run one of the exercises live. One person plays the therapist, one plays the client, and a third observes and offers structured feedback against a specific behavioral target, such as "stays in the schema mode" or "uses experiential language rather than cognitive interpretation." Five to ten minutes of focused rehearsal followed by feedback tends to produce more growth than longer unstructured roleplay. Licensed clinicians who want to take this further can join Sentio's ongoing deliberate practice consultation group, which meets regularly and is open to clinicians worldwide.

Going deeper: Deliberate Practice Supervision

The webinar above demonstrates what deliberate practice looks like inside Schema therapy. Doing deliberate practice supervision well is a separate skill, and one that is hard to acquire from didactic content alone. The method has to be practiced under feedback, the same way the clinical skill itself does. A single weekend workshop tends not to give supervisors enough repetitions to develop the experiential muscle they need. Sentio runs an intensive year-long clinical supervisor training built around this principle. For the longer rationale for that format, see Why One Weekend Supervisor Trainings Fall Short.

About the authors

Wendy T. Behary, LCSW is the Founder and Director of The Cognitive Therapy Center of New Jersey and the Schema Therapy Institutes of NJ-NY-DC. She is a past president of the International Society of Schema Therapy and author of Disarming the Narcissist. She is one of the most active senior trainers in the Schema therapy world and a longtime collaborator of Dr. Jeffrey Young, the founder of the model.

Joan M. Farrell, PhD is a clinical psychologist and Research Director of the Schema Therapy Institute Midwest. With Ida Shaw she co-developed Group Schema Therapy and co-authored several foundational texts on Schema therapy implementation, including The Schema Therapy Clinician's Guide and Group Schema Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder.

Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD is the President of Sentio University and Executive Director of the Sentio Counseling Center. He is past-president of the psychotherapy division of the American Psychological Association and the author of over 20 books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training, including The Essentials of Deliberate Practice book series (APA Books).

Alexandre Vaz, PhD is the Chief Academic Officer of Sentio University and co-founder of the Deliberate Practice Institute. He is co-editor of The Essentials of Deliberate Practice book series (APA Books) and host of Psychotherapy Expert Talks.

Related Sentio resources

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Considering graduate training? See the Sentio MFT Program

Frequently asked questions

Deliberate practice in Schema therapy is structured, repetitive rehearsal of specific clinical skills, such as chair work setup, limited reparenting language, or imagery rescripting transitions, with feedback from a peer or supervisor. It differs from didactic learning because the therapist actually practices the skill under simulated conditions rather than only studying or discussing it.
Licensed clinicians, supervisors, and graduate students who already have some exposure to Schema therapy and want a practical method for building their experiential skills. It is also useful for supervisors who want to introduce deliberate practice into existing group supervision.
No. The exercises are designed to be useful at multiple training levels. Therapists earlier in their Schema therapy journey tend to get the most value from chair work setup and limited reparenting drills. More advanced clinicians can use imagery rescripting and mode dialogue rehearsals.
Yes. The webinar is free, unedited, and free to share with colleagues, students, and supervisees. Sentio University is a 501©(3) nonprofit and releases its training resources openly.
Standard Schema therapy training teaches the model. Deliberate practice trains the skill. The two are complementary. This webinar shows how to add rehearsal-based skill building to the training pathways most clinicians already use, including certified Schema therapy programs.