Early Maladaptive Schemas
Schema therapy posits that psychological difficulties stem from early maladaptive schemas (EMS) and peoples’ characteristic responses to them, referred to as ‘coping styles’. This Early Maladaptive Schemas handout forms part of the Psychology Tools Schema series. It is designed to help clients and therapists to work more effectively with common early maladaptive schemas (EMS).
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Offers theory, guidance, and prompts for mental health professionals. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
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Introduction & Theoretical Background
A brief introduction to schema therapy
Schema therapy is an integrative therapy initially developed for treating complex, longstanding, and diffuse psychological difficulties. It combines cognitive, behavioral, attachment, gestalt, object relationships, constructivist, psychoanalytic, and neurobiological approaches within a unifying conceptual model (Young, 1990, 1999; Young et al., 2003). Additional interventions have since been outlined, such as EMDR (Young et al., 2002), mindfulness (van Vreeswijk et al., 2014), and body-focused methods (Briedis & Startup, 2020). Schema therapy expands on CBT by emphasizing the developmental origins of psychological problems, incorporating relational and experiential interventions, and targeting the maladaptive coping styles that perpetuate these difficulties (Young et al., 2003).
Early maladaptive schemas
Schemas are enduring, foundational mental structures that play an essential role in cognitive processing, enabling humans to represent the complexities of the world (Rafaeli et al., 2016). By simplifying reality, they make the vast array of information we encounter managable, enabling quick
Therapist Guidance
"Many people struggle with early maladaptive schemas and it sounds like they might be a problem for you too. Could we look at this list of schemas and see if any might be relevant to you?"
Before discussing individual EMS, clinicians might begin by providing psychoeducation about schemas more generally:
- Schemas are negative themes and patterns that start in childhood and continue throughout life. Some schemas are very common.
- People develop schemas because some of their emotional needs were unmet or met too intensely while they were growing up. As children, our schemas help us make sense of early experiences. However, they can also cause problems.
- Schemas usually get stronger as time passes, becoming the negative filters we use to understand and predict the world. You could think of them as dark sunglasses that color and distort our experiences in unhelpful ways.
- Schemas operate ‘behind the scenes’: we’re not
References And Further Reading
- Alba, J., Calvete, E., Wante, L., Van Beveren, M. L., & Braet, C. (2018). Early maladaptive schemas as moderators of the association between bullying victimization and depressive symptoms in adolescents. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 42, 24-35. DOI: 10.1007/s10608-017-9874-5.
- Arntz, A., Rijkeboer, M., Chan, E., Fassbinder, E., Karaosmanoglu, A., Lee, C. W., & Panzeri, M. (2021). Towards a reformulated theory underlying schema therapy: Position paper of an international workgroup. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 45, 1007-1020. DOI: 10.1007/s10608-021-10209-5.
- Bach, B., Lockwood, G., & Young, J. E. (2018). A new look at the schema therapy model: organization and role of early maladaptive schemas. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 47, 328-349. DOI: 10.1080/16506073.2017.1410566.
- Beck, A. T. (2015). Theory of personality disorders. In A. T. Beck, D. D. Denise, & A. Freeman (Eds.), Cognitive therapy of personality disorders (3rd ed.) (pp.19-62). Guilford Press.
- Beck, A. T., Freeman, A., & Davis, D. D. (2004). Cognitive therapy of