Eighteen schema patterns: a guide to the concepts
Read plain explanations and fictional illustrations of eighteen patterns, with room to question their meaning and relevance without rating yourself.
Written by Tarun Vermani, Trainee Clinical Psychologist Last reviewed
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Eighteen schema patterns: a guide to the concepts
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Concepts, not a test
Young, Klosko and Weishaar describe eighteen early maladaptive schemas: lasting patterns of meaning, feeling and memory that can become painful or limiting. These are concepts, not diagnoses or fixed types. Each brief fictional illustration shows only an idea, not evidence that someone has a schema. Do not score, count or build a profile from this guide. A schema differs from a coping style (how you respond) and a mode (your current state). This guide supports trained practice and does not replace it.
Patterns around connection
Abandonment/instability: expecting important connections to disappear or become unreliable. Fictional illustration: a changed meeting time feels like the start of losing a friend.
Mistrust/abuse: expecting others to exploit, deceive or hurt. Fictional illustration: a kind offer is read as a trap before its context is known.
Emotional deprivation: expecting understanding, warmth or guidance to be missing. Fictional illustration: someone assumes there is no point asking for comfort.
Defectiveness/shame: feeling flawed, bad or unlovable, so that being fully known would reveal something unacceptable. Fictional illustration: a small mistake seems to expose a bad self.
Social isolation/alienation: experiencing oneself as outside every group. Fictional illustration: someone feels like an outsider even among welcoming colleagues.
Patterns around independence and capability
Dependence/incompetence: expecting to be unable to manage everyday demands without extensive guidance. Fictional illustration: someone hands over a familiar decision despite having relevant skills.
Vulnerability to harm or illness: expecting disaster out of proportion to the actual risk, and doubting the ability to cope. Fictional illustration: an ordinary journey brings a vivid expectation of catastrophe.
Enmeshment/undeveloped self: difficulty sensing personal preferences apart from a close relationship. Fictional illustration: someone cannot tell which career choice is their own.
Failure: expecting to fall short of others in achievement. Fictional illustration: a learner dismisses progress as meaningless next to peers.
Patterns around limits
Entitlement/grandiosity: expecting special priority or exemption from mutual limits. Fictional illustration: someone treats a shared queue as a rule for everyone else.
Insufficient self-control/self-discipline: difficulty staying with frustration or limiting impulses for longer-term aims. Fictional illustration: someone repeatedly abandons a chosen task at the first dull part.
Patterns around others' needs and approval
Subjugation: giving up preferences or expression to avoid feared anger or rejection. Fictional illustration: someone agrees to a plan while feeling unable to voice a different wish.
Self-sacrifice: habitually putting others' needs ahead of one's own at a personal cost. Fictional illustration: someone repeatedly misses needed rest to help.
Approval-seeking/recognition-seeking: basing worth heavily on praise, status or being noticed. Fictional illustration: someone chooses a role for its prestige despite disliking the work.
Patterns around watchfulness and restraint
Negativity/pessimism: giving threats and losses much more weight than other possibilities. Fictional illustration: one setback overshadows several things that went adequately.
Emotional inhibition: restricting feelings or spontaneity to avoid feared disapproval or loss of control. Fictional illustration: someone hides delight as well as sadness.
Unrelenting standards/hypercriticalness: feeling driven to meet very high standards, with little allowance for rest or error. Fictional illustration: someone keeps polishing adequate work far beyond what is needed.
Punitiveness: believing mistakes, one's own or other people's, deserve harsh consequences with little room for context. Fictional illustration: someone sees punishment as the only response to an ordinary error.
Context and choice
A response may reflect real danger, discrimination, disability, neurodivergence, health, caring responsibilities, cultural commitments or needed assistance. It is not automatically a schema. Real abuse must not be dismissed as mistrust; dependence on care is not incompetence. If someone is hurting, threatening or controlling you now, tell your therapist. That is a safety matter, not a schema. These descriptions do not assign blame to you or your family. Childhood memories may be named briefly or left out. Imagery and chair work remain therapist-led only.
Questions and support
If you feel overwhelmed or unreal, pause, look around and name where you are. Contact your therapist through the agreed route. For urgent help when they are unavailable, use your agreed urgent-care contact.
This worksheet is for feelings you can manage. If you have urges to hurt yourself, or you feel unsafe, use your safety plan if you have one and tell your therapist. If you might act on the urges, call 999 or go to A&E. To talk to someone now, call Samaritans free on 116 123.
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When to use ‘Eighteen schema patterns: a guide to the concepts’
‘Eighteen schema patterns: a guide to the concepts’ is a psychoeducation handout based on schema therapy. Consider this resource when exploring long-standing patterns in relationships, emotions or coping, and how unmet needs and earlier experiences may connect with a client’s current difficulties.
It is designed to be read within therapy rather than as a standalone self-help tool: a therapist introduces it and discusses it with the client. You can preview the full handout above, then assign it for clients to read between sessions on any device or download it as a print-ready PDF. Where a short reflection is included, it offers space to respond to the reading.
How it works
Most people work through it in around 15 minutes. It moves through six short sections to read:
- Concepts, not a test: Young, Klosko and Weishaar describe eighteen early maladaptive schemas: lasting patterns of meaning, feeling and memory that can become…
- Patterns around connection: Abandonment/instability: expecting important connections to disappear or become unreliable. Fictional illustration: a changed meeting time…
- Patterns around independence and capability: Dependence/incompetence: expecting to be unable to manage everyday demands without extensive guidance. Fictional illustration: someone…
- Patterns around limits: Entitlement/grandiosity: expecting special priority or exemption from mutual limits. Fictional illustration: someone treats a shared queue…
- Patterns around others' needs and approval: Subjugation: giving up preferences or expression to avoid feared anger or rejection. Fictional illustration: someone agrees to a plan while…
- Patterns around watchfulness and restraint: Negativity/pessimism: giving threats and losses much more weight than other possibilities. Fictional illustration: one setback overshadows…
The handout can be read on a phone, tablet or computer, or downloaded as a print-ready PDF. If it includes a reflection, answers entered on the Formulate platform are saved automatically and shared back with the therapist for review before the next session.
The schema therapy approach behind it
‘Eighteen schema patterns: a guide to the concepts’ draws on schema therapy. Schema therapy explores long-standing patterns linked to unmet emotional needs. Schemas describe broad patterns of meaning; modes describe emotional states and coping responses that become active in particular situations. Coping styles include surrendering to a pattern, avoiding it or trying to counter it. The therapist and client can explore these responses alongside the needs they may reflect.
It is intended as one part of a wider course of therapy rather than as advice or a diagnosis. The therapist can help decide how it fits the work and discuss what emerges.
Evidence & sources
This handout draws on schema therapy. Key sources include:
- Young, J. E., Klosko, J. S., & Weishaar, M. E. (2003). Schema Therapy: A Practitioner's Guide. Guilford Press.
- Arntz, A., & Jacob, G. (2013). Schema Therapy in Practice: An Introductory Guide to the Schema Mode Approach. Wiley-Blackwell.
For use alongside professional support
Formulate provides educational CBT resources for use with a qualified therapist. They are not a substitute for professional assessment, diagnosis, or crisis care.
If you need urgent help now:
- Emergency services: 999 — if you or someone else is in immediate danger
- NHS 111 (NHS 24 in Scotland): 111 — choose the mental health option for urgent help, in England, Scotland and Wales (in Wales, press 2)
- Lifeline: 0808 808 8000 — for urgent help in Northern Ireland, free, day or night
- Samaritans: 116 123 — free, day or night, 365 days a year
- Shout: 85258 — text SHOUT, free, day or night
- SANEline: 0300 304 7000 — 4pm–10pm, every day
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