Treatment Suggestions for the Self–Sacrifice Schema
1.Think about and recognize if you have an exaggerated perception of fragility and neediness in others.
2. Increase an awareness of your own needs by listing them. Think especially about your need for nurturance, understanding, protection, and guidance.
3. Evaluate if your relationships have an imbalance of “give and take”. Outside of reasonable caretaking situations, the balance should be approximately equal over time.
4. Experientially express sadness and anger about unmet emotional need using imagery. Confront those who deprived you.
5. Consider and assess if you were a “parentified child” caused by those in power putting adult demands on you in your childhood. Acknowledge the memories and feelings of the loss of childhood because of this. Use EMDR to decrease the negative feelings and self-perceptions related to these memories.
6. Use imagery to express anger toward people in your life who willfully deprived you and/or demanding too much from you.
7. Ask for what you need directly. Be careful to present yourself in a clear and strong way if that change is necessary for you.
8. Select partners and friends who are capable and giving rather than incapable or demanding. Set limits on how much you give to others.
9. Challenge yourself to occasionally be vulnerable with others rather than being the “strong one”.
10. Keep from rationalizing the tendency to please others so much.