Maladaptive schemas are broad, pervasive themes or patterns; comprised of memories, emotions, cognitions, and bodily sensations; regarding oneself and one’s relationships with others; emerging during childhood or adolescence; developed throughout one’s lifetime; and dysfunctional to a significant degree. – Jeffrey Young, Founder of Schema Therapy
The triggering of a maladaptive schema represents the frustration of a core emotional need for secure attachment, autonomy, free self-expression, spontaneity/play, or realistic limits.
The 20 Early Maladaptive Schemas
Disconnection and Rejection
- Emotional Deprivation: The belief that the need for emotional support, attention, understanding, empathy, and help will never be sufficiently met by others.
- Abandonment: The belief that everyone will leave. Creates a sense of loneliness as no one can offer the emotional support, connection, strength, or protection needed.
- Mistrust/Abuse: The belief that others will intentionally cause harm by lying, cheating, manipulating, hurting, shaming, or abusing you.
- Defectiveness: The belief of being flawed, worthless, bad, incapable, or useless in important aspects of life.
- Social Isolation: The perception of being isolated from others, being different from other people, not being part of a group, or having no sense of belonging.
Impaired Autonomy and Performance
- Dependency/Incompetence: The belief that one is incapable of making decisions and thus requires a large amount of support from others to manage daily life or complete tasks.
- Vulnerability to Illness/Harm: The belief that there is a constant risk of illness, harm, or danger that cannot be prevented.
- Enmeshment: The strong attachment to others and over-involvement in their lives due to the belief that one doesn’t have any social life or interests of one’s own. This results in needing to be overly close to others.
- Failure: The belief that one has failed or will always fail in areas of performance (such as work, school, or sports).
Conditional Connectedness
- Subjugation: The act of giving over control to others, allowing them to make decisions, due to the belief of oneself being weak and others being stronger.
- Self-Sacrifice: The belief that the needs of others are more important and must be fulfilled at all costs. This is often to the detriment of one’s own happiness or wellbeing.
- Approval Seeking: The act of trying excessively to achieve the approval, praise, or attention of others; trying to fit in at the cost of developing one’s own true feelings or identity.
Impaired Limits
- Entitlement: The belief that one is superior to others and is more deserving of special treatment or privileges.
- Insufficient Self-Control: The difficulty with controlling one’s impulses or urges that results in risk taking behaviors or expressing feelings in an extreme manner.
Over-Vigilance and Inhibition
- Negativity/Pessimism: The tendency to focus on the negative aspects of life and always expect the worst, while ignoring or minimizing the positives.
- Emotional Constriction: A pattern of overcontrol or disconnection from one’s own emotions.
- Fear of Losing Control: The belief that something terrible will happen if one fails to maintain control over their emotions.
- Unrelenting Standards: The belief that one must work excessively hard to meet very high standards for behavior and achievement to avoid criticism from oneself or others.
- Punitiveness (others): The belief that people should be harshly punished if they make mistakes.
- Punitiveness (self): The belief that one should harshly punish themselves for mistakes.