My Container is a Purple Chest

My Container is a Purple Chest

Schema therapy is a transdiagnostic psychological treatment rooted in cognitive therapy that integrates elements of several different psychotherapeutic approaches including gestalt therapy, psychodynamic therapy, and ego-state therapy (1). Schema therapy is characterised by a central and primary development-based focus on emotional needs, the additional application of experiential and emotion-focused techniques and the use of schema modes (1). Schema modes refer to moment to moment emotional, cognitive, psychological states and coping responses (1).

My therapist and I started schema therapy when we reached a point in the traditional therapies that I was no longer advancing. We got through the immediate stressors and made significant changes and not it was time to go to the root causes.

I had previously done schema therapy with my long term psychologist in my twenties. Except I was still living in the house with the cause of the schemas and I was not safe enough to delve into those schemas. I couldn’t even close my eyes let alone look at myself in a mirror.

The thing with schema therapy is that it’s fucking hard. It’s like a mirror with a million magnification in front of me and I’m forced to look so deeply inside of myself I turn into the little girl who developed the schemas.

With my therapist now, I can close my eyes comfortably. Even though it’s a two-bar chocolate treat after each session, I’ve made the decision to participate in schema therapy. Since I decided I can do it, I can.

Participation doesn’t mean going in blind and unprepared. Apart from the first session when I had to get out of the therapist’s office, we started a new wind down technique to store my feelings and give me control over them.

We store everything in my purple chest.

This exercise is called ‘Container Therapy’ and allows me to process my trauma in a controlled and safe environment. Since I designed the container, I trust that tis locked and sealed and I have complete control of the emotions inside as I hold the imaginative key.

Purple is my absolute favourite colour and a chest seemed sturdier than a box and more classic than a vault. I imagine it like a pirate’s treasure chest but instead of treasure it’s filled with all my trauma. So really… its priceless.

At the end of the session, when I feel wrecked and exhausted by the weight of words, we’ll wind down.

I’ll close my eyes and listen to my therapist. At her words I’ll picture my purple chest and all my emotions, reflections, and horrors will spiral above me in a tornado. I’ll acknowledge them and watch the tornado swindle down until it’s contained in my purple chest. I’ll lock it with the key and let myself come back into my body.

I’ll open my eyes. And suddenly I’m exhausted but I feel good about it.

The best thing about this container therapy is that I can open it up whenever I want. But the greatest thing about my purple chest is that nothing inside of it can hurt me or approach me without my permission.

I feel completely safe feeling those emotions (even though its hard) because I know that anything I feel will be stored in my purple chest and that’s where it will stay.

I’m safe. (Spoiler: that’s what little me never felt).

I was going to post my exact container I imagine, but it's too much mine for me to share. So I hope this has inspired you to create your own or even bring it up with your therapist as a technique!

Love,

J.R. Sonder

References:

1. Young, Jeffrey E., Janet S. Klosko, and Marjorie E. Weishaar. Schema therapy: A practitioner's guide. Guilford Press, 2006.