Schema Therapy in Ajax

Ajax wears its history on its street signs. The town grew out of a Second World War munitions plant, Defence Industries Limited's Pickering Works, and took its name from HMS Ajax, the Royal Navy ship that fought at the Battle of the River Plate in 1939. Many streets carry the names of that ship's officers and crew; Harwood Avenue is named after Admiral Henry Harwood. After the war, from 1946 to 1949, the old plant site even housed a University of Toronto engineering division for returning veterans. Most people drive those roads every day without a thought for where the names came from. Schemas work in much the same way.

A schema is a pattern laid down early, usually in childhood, about what to expect from other people and from yourself: that you will be left, that you have to earn your place, that your needs come last. By adulthood it runs in the background like a street name you no longer notice. It shapes who you are drawn to, how you react to criticism at work, why rest feels undeserved and why the same argument keeps coming back in different clothes.

Some schemas fit neatly with the demands of a busy life. Unrelenting standards can pass for diligence when you are juggling a job, a commute and a full house. Self-sacrifice can pass for being a good son, daughter or parent when family expectations are close at hand every day. The pattern is not a character flaw, and it usually made sense once. The cost shows up later: exhaustion, resentment, a sense that nothing you do is ever quite enough, or relationships that repeat the same hurt with different people.

Ajax's own story offers a way to picture this. The munitions plant was built for an emergency; when the emergency ended, the community stayed, kept the names, and grew into a town of more than 126,000 people by 2021. Coping strategies work the same way. They are built for an emergency in childhood, kept long after it has passed, and go on shaping a life that has grown far larger than the conditions that produced them. In schema terms you might notice a Demanding Critic that never lets up, or a Compliant Surrenderer who keeps the peace at your own expense.

Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), trained in schema therapy at CASMH Health Institute in Germany and uses it as the foundation of her work. Together you map which schemas are running, where they started and what they protect, then use imagery, chair work and practice between sessions to strengthen a steadier Healthy Adult voice. Sessions are online, in English or Farsi, for people anywhere in Ajax and across Ontario.