Help clients understand and address the defectiveness schema through this insightful handout.
Offers theory, guidance, and prompts for mental health professionals. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
Includes client-friendly guidance. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
People with a defectiveness schema see themselves as fundamentally flawed: too bad, ugly, inferior, or worthless to be loved and accepted. This can lead to intense shame, self-criticism, and sensitivity to rejection. This Defectiveness information handout is part of the Psychology Tools Schema series, aimed at assisting therapists and clients with early maladaptive schemas (EMS).
The Defectiveness handout is designed to:
Pervasive feelings of worthlessness or inadequacy impacting mood.
Particularly those involving chronic feelings of badness or inferiority.
Where a fundamental sense of defectiveness drives disordered eating.
Begin with psychoeducation about EMS and their origins in unmet emotional needs in childhood.
Work with clients to recognize their defectiveness schema and its triggers.
Use self-monitoring techniques like schema diaries to recognize schema activation.
Address defectiveness using schema-focused techniques such as imagery rescripting.
Schema therapy is an integrative therapy initially developed for treating complex, longstanding, and diffuse psychological difficulties. Schema therapy expands on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) by emphasizing the developmental origins of psychological problems, incorporating relational and experiential interventions, and targeting the maladaptive coping styles that perpetuate these difficulties.
Early maladaptive schemas (EMS) are pervasive themes or patterns regarding oneself and one’s relationship with others that are dysfunctional and self-defeating. Interactions between a child’s temperament, parenting, sociocultural context, and significant life experiences (e.g., traumatic events) can give rise to unmet emotional needs, which form the basis of EMS.
Individuals with defectiveness experience a pervasive sense of inadequacy and inferiority. They see themselves as fundamentally flawed and defective, leading to deep-seated shame and unworthiness. Research suggests that it is one of the most pronounced EMS across psychological disorders (Thimm & Chang, 2022) and readily transmitted between parents and their children (Mącik et al., 2016).
