Stephanie Underwood RSW

09/28/2026

Safety isn’t something your brain simply “knows.” It’s something it learns.

Early relationships give the brain its first dataset for what connection means, what to expect from other people, and what strategies are most likely to keep us safe.

And because the brain predicts from what it has already experienced, familiar patterns can feel strangely compelling, even when they aren’t particularly good for us.

But learned doesn’t mean permanent.

New experiences create new evidence. New evidence gives the brain something different to predict from. 🧠

09/23/2026

The brain constantly runs models about what will happen next. When reality contradicts the model enough times, the model starts adjusting. If reality keeps confirming the model, the model becomes stronger.

That means something pretty profound for therapy. Early childhood schemas don’t dissolve because a person understands it. A schema weakens when the current reality violates its own prediction - repeatedly.

So if someone carries the emotional deprivation schema, their nervous system is running a prediction that says:

“When I express a need, it will not be met.”

Meditation cannot disprove that.
Breathing cannot disprove that.
Even insight alone cannot disprove that.

Only this can disprove it:
The person expresses a need.
Someone responds.
It happens again.
And again.
And again.

Eventually the nervous system starts going, “Hold on… the probability calculation might be wrong.”

09/09/2026

You inherit a system before you’re old enough to question it. Whether it’s a family system. A relational system. A set of rules about what is safe, what is allowed, what earns connection, and what parts of you need to disappear to keep the peace.

As children, we adapt to the environments we’re given. We learn what works. We learn what doesn’t. And eventually, those adaptations can start to feel less like something we learned and more like who we are.

But inherited rules are not permanent rules.

You can question them. You can outgrow them.
You can decide that what helped you survive one environment doesn’t get to dictate how you live in every environment that comes after it.

You may have been shaped by the system. But you’re not required to spend your life reproducing it.

09/01/2026

Our brains are always trying to predict what will happen next so they can keep us safe. But humans also depend on other humans. Especially when we’re young, we need other people for food, protection, comfort, information, and belonging.

So what happens when the person you need is also the person who hurts you?

The brain doesn’t simply stop needing them. Instead, it learns to manage both realities at the same time:

“I need to stay close to you.”
AND “Being close to you might hurt me.”

That conflict shapes how we learn to relate to people long after the original relationship is over.

Sometimes what looks confusing from the outside makes a lot more sense when we understand what the brain learned to expect.

——————————-

Learn more about the brain’s predictive process on my blog 🧠✨

https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/predictive-processing

08/26/2026

Healing relational trauma requires that we gain an understanding of our core wounds (schemas), and it also requires new, safer relational experiences to provide our brain with evidence that closeness, conflict, boundaries, and vulnerability do not always lead to the same outcomes they once did.

Over time, those experiences can begin to challenge old predictions about what relationships mean and what to expect from them.

08/16/2026

All 18 schema blog posts are officially out. 🎉

Over the past few months, I’ve been working through the 18 Early Maladaptive Schemas one by one as part of the Schema Origins Mini Series.

Each post explores what the schema actually is, how it can develop through early relational experiences, how it tends to show up in adulthood, and what healing can look like.

If you’ve ever wondered why certain fears, beliefs, relationship patterns, or emotional reactions seem to follow you even when you logically know better, schemas are a very good place to start looking.

The complete Schema Origins Mini Series is now available at healingnarrativescounselling.com.

I’ve also linked the individual schema posts below so you can jump directly to the ones that resonate with you. 👇

Save this post because you’re probably going to want to come back to it. 🧠🌿

Abandonment:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-abandonment-schema-why-you-re-always-waiting-for-people-to-leave

Emotional Deprivation:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-emotional-deprivation-schema-when-you-ve-always-felt-unseen

Defectiveness and Shame:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-defectiveness-and-shame-schema-what-it-is-how-it-forms-and-how-to-heal-it

Social Isolation and Alienation:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-social-isolation-and-alienation-schema

Enmeshment:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-enmeshment-schema

Failure:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-failure-schema

Vulnerability to Harm:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-vulnerability-to-harm-schema-why-some-people-can-never-fully-relax-into-safety

Mistrust and Abuse:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-mistrust-and-abuse-schema-when-the-nervous-system-learned-that-people-cannot-be-trusted

Self-Sacrifice:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-self-sacrifice-schema-why-putting-everyone-first-is-not-the-same-as-being-kind

Subjugation:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-subjugation-schema-when-shrinking-yourself-feels-like-the-only-way-to-stay-safe

Approval Seeking:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-approval-seeking-schema-why-some-people-have-never-learned-how-to-simply-be-themselves

Negativity and Pessimism:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-negativity-and-pessimism-schema

Emotional Inhibition:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-emotional-inhibition-schema-when-feeling-became-too-dangerous-to-risk

Unrelenting Standards:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-unrelenting-standards-schema-when-good-enough-was-never-an-option

Entitlement and Grandiosity:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-entitlement-and-grandiosity-schema-when-the-nervous-system-never-learned-that-others-are-real

Self-Punitive / Punitiveness:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/self-punitive-schema

The Insufficient Self-Control Schema:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-insufficient-self-control-schema

Series Overview, Understanding Schemas:
https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/how-to-actually-heal-your-schemas-and-why-most-people-never-do

Healing maladaptive schemas isn't about thinking your way out of old patterns. It's about understanding what schemas are, where yours came from, and why real change only happens one way. Hugh

08/03/2026

New blog post on the Enmeshment Schema ✨

https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-enmeshment-schema

The enmeshment schema develops inside families that look close and loving from the outside. But the child's identity was absorbed into the parent's needs, and the adult who results often doesn't know what they want, think, or feel without someone else's needs to organize around. Here is where it com...

07/30/2026

✨ Read my latest blog post on the Fear of Failure Schema; what it is, how it impacts your relationships and your decisions everyday, and how to heal it.

✨This is a good one.

https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-failure-schema

The failure schema is not a fear of failing. It’s the brain’s prediction that failure is inevitable, and that it reflects something inherent about who you are. Here is where it comes from, how it filters evidence to maintain itself, and what healing actually requires.

07/30/2026

Perfectionism. Procrastination. Performance anxiety. That’s what we see at the top of the iceberg.

These are frequently framed as motivation problems or discipline issues. Which, by the way, tend to reinforce the fear of failure schema itself, “what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just do this small task?”

But these have nothing to do with not being good enough. They’re what we call “Protective Adaptations” built by a brain that learnt early on that failure leads to rejection. And so the brain said, “we can’t let that happen. What can we do to make sure that rejection never happens?” and that’s when the fear of failure schema was born.

Your brain isn’t reacting to failure itself. It’s reacting to what it predicts failure will cost you relationally. And until that prediction is updated through experiences of safety, no amount of discipline or willpower will override a system designed to keep you alive.

When the prediction changes, the behaviour can change too.

Check out the brand new blog post for more insight on the Fear of Failure Schema:

https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-failure-schema