LECTURE FOR REATTACH: INTRODUCTION OF A NEW SCHEMA THERAPY BY PAULA WEERKAMP - BARTHOLOMEUS

Abstract

A lecture with topic "Reattach: introduction of a new schema therapy" was held on September 14, 2015 at the Faculty of Philosophy. It was organized under the auspices of The Macedonian Scientific Society for Autism. The lecture started at 10 am with the presentation by the President of MSSA Dr. Vladimir Trajkovski, who warmly welcomed the guests. There were 50 participants among which parents, professionals from different areas and students. He introduced the presenter Dr. Paula Weerkamp - Bartholomeus, who is a school psychologist.
Dr. Paula Weerkamp - Bartholomeus has gained a lot of experience in the last 26 years with intensive work and education at the universities in Holland in the fields of psychology and special education and rehabilitation.
Dr. Paula Weerkamp – Bartholomeus began the presentation of her work "Reattach: introduction of a new schema therapy", which is a multimodal approach for adults and children who suffer from different functional disabilities, as well as neuropsychological dysfunction. This treatment, despite the fact that it is used as a schema therapy, shows promising implementation in the treatment of people with autism.
The treatment can also be used in various fields, as treatment for brain trauma, dementia, and there is the possibility to apply the treatment with persons who suffer from psychopathic behavior.
The treatment offers a training of cognitive abilities of the concerned person, while using different methods makes the treatment quite easily adapted for both adults and children. Primarily the treatment begins by stimulating the brain cells through physical contact, allowing increased production of the hormone oxytocin. During the treatment with the physical contact it's provided increase and decrease in the level of arousal. Physical contact allows the participant to release stress and negative thoughts and it encourages social interaction.
During the treatment the therapist works with the parents as well, and it's necessary to achieve the same effect for arousal control like in the children. Many persons with special needs, especially autism, receive stimuli only through one channel (auditory, visual, tactile) at a certain time, but have not developed the ability for multisensory integration or simultaneous processing of information received through multiple channels.
When a person with disabilities will achieve an optimal level of arousal, then he begins with multisensory stimulation to allow conceptual thinking and processing of received stimuli.
Around the first year of life, children are capable to conceptualize coherent information. Children with autism haven’t developed this capability. The information they receive is fragmented, and they lack the ability to create a coherent picture of themselves, others and the world around them. Previous researches showed that among different types of disorders were obtained different results and different progress has been made, but they all have one thing in common, which is that there is an improvement in the personal development of the individual. In people with autism with the use of certain compo-nents of this treatment are achieved impro-vements in different areas of their fun-ctioning.
After the presentation of Dr. Paula Weerkamp - Bartholomeus, a discussion followed. The discussion was interactive and was followed with great interest from the guests. After the discussion Prof. Dr. Vladimir Trajkovski close the lecture by expressing gratitude to the guests for their participation and expressed gratitude to the Faculty of Philosophy for providing premises for holding the lecture. He especially expressed gratitude to the lecturer Dr. Paula Weerkamp - Bartholomeus and her husband Frederick Bartholomeus who unselfishly and without seeking financial compensation expressed a desire to come on their own expense to enable this lecture which was free and accessible to all. It was expressed gratitude for their selfless sharing of their knowledge and experience. MSSA members sincerely hope that this collaboration with the colleagues from the Netherlands will be strengthened and will continue successfully in the future.