How do you view the world?  September is “schema” month

Healing from Narcissistic Relationships

September 2025

Month Overview:

What is a schema?  It’s a fancy way of saying “mental map,” mental shortcut, or way of seeing the world, the people in the world, yourself, and your beliefs. It’s the way we organize the world and the information we get from the world. 

Why does this matter to your healing?  Well, we all have them – otherwise we would be pretty inefficient.  But as you can imagine - if these maps aren’t healthy, it can take a toll on us (and narcissistic relationships always mess with our schemas and make them less healthy).

And why does this matter for survivors of narcissistic relationships?  For lots of reasons -these relationships shape our schemas, and often in bad ways.  If a narcissistic relationship comes into our lives in adulthood, existing schemas can get blown up – there is a sort of a schema before and a schema after.    

But the good news is that these schemas are not permanent – they are amenable to change, and changing our schema is part of healing. So, this month – let’s take on our world views and how our own data processors for the world work and find out how your schemas can be helping and hindering your healing.