A practical worksheet for exploring early maladaptive schemas and coping responses in the present moment, designed to support schema therapy case formulation.
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.
Formulation is central to schema therapy, offering a structured way for clients and therapists to make sense of psychological difficulties. The Schema Model – Here And Now worksheet provides a descriptive framework for understanding the emotional, cognitive, somatic, and behavioral components of early maladaptive schemas (EMS). By anchoring exploration in a recent triggering event, this resource helps clients identify schema-related patterns and supports meaningful formulation work early in treatment. Therapists can use this tool to introduce schema concepts, deepen self-awareness, and guide targeted interventions.
Schema-focused case formulations help both clients and therapists develop shared understanding of psychological difficulties and shape treatment plans accordingly. This resource supports:
Enduring patterns of dysregulation, shaped by early neglect or abuse and expressed via maladaptive coping modes.
Internalized negative core beliefs about worth, often reflecting early relational wounds.
Maladaptive interpersonal patterns shaped by unacknowledged or unchallenged EMS.
Characterized by unstable self-image, affect, and interpersonal relationships, often rooted in unmet emotional needs.
Chronic negative self-beliefs and coping styles that maintain low mood.
Patterns of rejection sensitivity and avoidance linked to schemas of defectiveness or social isolation.
Choose a schema that is emotionally salient or frequently triggered in daily life.
Identify a recent activating situation to explore in depth.
Help clients identify emotions, sensations, thoughts, and early memories associated with schema activation.
Uncover the client's coping style — surrender, avoidance, or overcompensation.
Facilitate client reflection on how the schema and coping responses maintain current difficulties.
Use insights to plan interventions such as imagery rescripting or behavioral pattern-breaking.
Formulation is a fundamental process in schema therapy, offering a structured means of understanding the origins and maintenance of psychological difficulties. The Schema Model – Here And Now worksheet is designed to support therapists and clients in developing a descriptive, collaboratively generated case conceptualization. Grounded in schema theory (Young et al., 2003), the worksheet anchors exploration in a recent triggering event, helps clients identify their early maladaptive schemas (EMS), and then explore their associated emotional, cognitive, somatic, and memory-based components. EMS are persistent, self-defeating patterns rooted in unmet emotional needs during childhood and adolescence, and are often activated in adulthood by situations that resemble or symbolically repeat early experiences (Arntz & Van Genderen, 2021). Because many EMS are preverbal in origin, the worksheet prioritizes emotional and bodily responses, which are sometimes more immediately accessible than verbal thoughts (Briedis & Startup, 2020; Young et al., 2003).
Clients can be invited to reflect on early memories that resemble the current activating situation, using affective, somatic, or cognitive bridges to facilitate recall when needed (Hoffart, 2012; Simeone-DiFrancesco et al., 2015). These memories can be explored in the context of unmet emotional needs, deepening clients’ understanding of how their schemas developed and why they continue to be triggered. The worksheet also prompts clients to identify their habitual coping responses — surrender, avoidance, or overcompensation (Young et al., 2003) — and consider whether these responses fulfill or block their core needs. This step can help to illustrate how coping styles, while adaptive in the short term, often reinforce schemas and maintain distress (Cutland Green & Balfour, 2020; Rafaeli et al., 2011).
By connecting the present moment to historical patterns, the Schema Model – Here And Now serves as both an assessment and intervention tool. It helps therapists respond empathically and strategically to clients’ emotional needs, and it fosters a coherent understanding of complex difficulties within a schema framework. The shared formulation supports therapeutic alliance by establishing a common language and grounding the rationale for change-oriented interventions. It also serves as a natural bridge to the active phase of therapy, including techniques such as cognitive restructuring, imagery rescripting, and behavioral pattern-breaking (Arntz & Jacob, 2013; Young et al., 2003).
