This informational handout provides a client-friendly introduction to early maladaptive schemas (EMS).
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.
Schema therapy posits that psychological difficulties stem from early maladaptive schemas (EMS) and peoples’ characteristic responses to them, referred to as ‘coping styles’. EMS are defined as negative, pervasive themes or patterns regarding oneself and one’s relationship with others that are dysfunctional and self-defeating.
This What Are 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).
This resource is designed to support clients by:
Persistent anxiety and low mood.
Longstanding maladaptive patterns that disrupt relationships.
Schema-focused interventions for personality disorders and eating disorders.
Use the handout to introduce clients to the concept of schemas.
Pinpoint negative themes or unhelpful patterns in the client's life.
Help the client name and describe their schemas.
Explore where the client's schemas may have come from.
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).
Early maladaptive schemas (EMS) are defined as negative and pervasive themes or patterns about oneself and one's relationships with others that are dysfunctional and self-defeating. Structurally, EMS are thought to consist of thoughts, memories, emotions, bodily sensations, and the meanings attached to them (Van Genderen et al., 2012).
Interactions among a child's temperament, parenting, sociocultural context, and significant life experiences (such as traumatic events) can lead to unmet emotional needs, which serve as the foundation for EMS.
Throughout a person's life, EMS are elaborated on and strengthened, becoming the "filters" through which individuals understand and predict their own behavior, the behavior of others, and the world around them (Young & Klosko, 1994). As a result, EMS developed in early life can influence current events, even when they are not relevant, leading to dysfunctional patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior (Young et al., 2003).
