Advanced Certified Schema Therapist, Supervisor and Trainer

Welcome

Thank you for visiting my website. I hope the information here can help answer questions you may have about me, how I work, and what you can expect from therapy. Finding a therapist you like and trust is key to achieving your goals. I know the process can be challenging.


I provide a collaborative approach, broad experience in multiple modalities, and a commitment to work with you to create an appropriate treatment plan to address your concerns. Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions.

Services Overview

Psychotherapy

I provide psychotherapy to individuals and families with a particular focus on how problematic life patterns rooted in childhood experiences influence personal distress and difficulty with others.   


Schema Therapy

Schema Therapy (ST) is an evidenced-based therapy that addresses current self-defeating life patterns by connecting them to unmet core emotional needs in childhood.

Trauma Therapy

Over the course of a lifetime, many people experience various forms of emotional and psychological trauma. Such trauma can result from single events (such as witnessing or being the victim of a violent crime), a series of events (such as recurring abuse via a parent or partner), or a combination of events over time.

Family Therapy

Family therapy presents opportunities to heal attachment ruptures as well as develop stronger sense of self through improving the quality of interpersonal relationship and shifting one's functional role in the family system.

Take the next step

Tackling deep rooted childhood experiences & problematic life patterns, addressing self-defeating life patterns, dealing with trauma or abuse, and improving the quality of inter-personal relationships through Family Therapy can be addressed safely and comfortably in-person. 


As an an
Advanced Certified Schema Therapist, Supervisor and Trainer, Paul DelGrosso is a clinical licensed social worker who works with clients in his Bethesda, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Offices and online via Zoom.  He has provided valuable therapy services including Psychotherapy, Schema Therapy, Trauma Therapy, and Family Therapy

PsychInsights Blog

By Paul DelGrosso 14 May, 2022
How schema therapy can integrate with attachment-based family therapy to enhance parenting skills
Blue skies in the mountains
By Paul DelGrosso 26 May, 2021
Are you seeking an advanced certified schema therapist, or a schema therapy supervisor and trainer? Paul DelGrosso has offices in Bethesda, Maryland, and Washington, DC.
Paul DelGrosso in a schema therapy session in Washington, DC
By Paul DelGrosso 12 May, 2021
We all have a unique mix of schemas that are both healthy and problematic. If the problematic schemas are severe they can lead to chronic life problems across many life domains (including relationships, work/school functioning, self-confidence, and sense of self).
By Paul DelGrosso 28 Apr, 2021
Schema Therapy is ideal for patients who have not responded to various forms of Therapy. If you struggle with relationship issues & problems, or more intense psychological issues, this very comprehensive therapy could be what you need.
Is your teen showing signs of depression or even suicide?
By Paul DelGrosso 14 Apr, 2021
Is your teen showing signs of depression or suicide? Attachment-based family therapy (ABFT) aims to help a child repair ruptures in their relationship with his (or her) parents and works to develop (or rebuild) an emotionally secure relationship.
Insecure couple ponder their relationship due to insecurity
By Paul DelGrosso 31 Mar, 2021
Do you often feel secure about your relationship or feel the need to be controlled, or control your partner? There may be a deeper underlying issue that needs to be addressed. Click here to learn more about Abandonment Schema and how we can help.
couple meets with a therapist to discuss their troubled relationship
By Paul DelGrosso 17 Mar, 2021
Are you and a loved one struggling with your relationship and need intervention? This super quick read discusses a few ways to better understand your partner's needs and how you can address them on a personal level from experienced Washington DC and Maryland-based Clinical Social Worker Paul DelGrosso who is also an Advanced Certified Schema Therapist.
By Paul DelGrosso 12 Dec, 2020
How 'Grievance' Operates as a  Bully & Attack Mode
By Paul DelGrosso 16 Sep, 2020
James Hamblin wrote a recent thought-provoking article in The Atlantic that explores the role that tears play in human behavior and how such normal expressions of emotion are derided by some as "weak" - including by our current president. He goes on to discuss how the ability to express and respond to tears plays an important role in human social bonding. The absence of this ability is actually alarming, since it reveals an inability to experience empathy. Hamblin notes the ways in which our coarsening culture mistakes such bullying aggression for healthy masculinity: "It equates aggression with success and detachment with confidence. It fetishizes impetuousness, pompousness, and brash egocentrism as alpha-manliness—the state that young men are taught to envy and all others to flock to." Much of what Hamblin writes about is descriptive of narcissism. He aptly notes how the inflated sense of self of narcissists are often an overcompensation for feeling not good enough. In my work as a Schema Therapist, I often see narcissism as the result of certain essential emotional needs not being met in childhood. Many persons with narcissism have patterns of childhood experiences that involve inadequate nurturance of affection, empathy, and appropriate guidance. When such individuals enter adulthood, these internalized patterns of experience play out in life - usually showing up in the form of recurring patterns of conflictual family and work relationships. Those with narcissism often seek therapy reluctantly at the prodding of loved ones or co-workers. Many traditional forms of therapy either overpathologize narcissists or are unable to adequately treat it. In Schema Therapy, narcissists learn the origins of their unmet needs and grow capable of addressing those vulnerable parts they work so hard to conceal through overcompensation. Over time, narcissists can learn to develop empathy through "re-parenting" their deprived childhood parts and by learning appropriate limit-setting through the therapeutic relationship. The work in Schema Therapy is certainly challenging, yet the cost of not trying to change is frequently worse. Patterns of self-aggrandizement and aggression lead to marital problems, poor bonding with children, and conflict at work. If untreated and patterns continue, spouses often seek divorce, children cut off contact, and bosses pursue termination. While the behavior of our current president may suggest to some that narcissism is the new normal, the reality for most narcissists and those around them is that bullying aggression and lack of empathy are not only not normal, but destructive to healthy human relationships.
By Paul DelGrosso 14 Sep, 2020
A recent study in Frontiers in Psychiatry addresses the role guilt-inducing memories play in influencing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms. Research suggests that criticism from caregivers in childhood plays a role in the development of OCD - including that obsessive behaviors may develop in children as a strategy to avoid criticism and gain approval. Although Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) remains the gold standard treatment for OCD and is effective for many types of OCD, a significant proportion of people with OCD do not fully respond to this treatment. The impact of guilt-inducing memories plays a part in these cases. Schema Therapy (ST) provides an avenue to help those with OCD reduce the impact of guilt-inducing memories through Imagery Rescripting (ImRs). This process involves patients identifying key memories from childhood that involve being the object of criticism and evoke a sense of guilt and shame. With ImRs, patients are guided back to their childhood, reexperience these events from the felt experience of their younger self, and engage in emotionally corrective healing that enables new meaning to be made from these painful events. With continued ImRs treatment, patients with OCD report not only a reduction of feelings of guilt and shame, but also a reduction in overall OCD symptoms.  I hypothesize that once patients achieve a significant reduction in feelings of guilt and reduce the impact of intrusive guilt-inducing memories, they are likely to respond better to ERP to further reduce OCD symptoms. I provide both ERP and ST as part of my psychotherapy practice. I believe that integrating these two powerful treatments has the potential to provide a more robust response for those with OCD - especially those who have not found significant relief from ERP alone or other therapies. Please contact me if you would like to schedule an assessment. Please also peruse my website to learn more about me and the services I offer.
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