List of Schemas: 18 Names, Client Language, and One Question

Schema	Domain	How it sounds in a client	Question to bring it out
Abandonment / Instability	Disconnection / Rejection	They will leave	When did you first know they would go?
Mistrust / Abuse	Disconnection / Rejection	Care comes with a cost	Who taught you that closeness is a trap?
Emotional Deprivation	Disconnection / Rejection	No one really gets me	When did you stop expecting to be met?
Defectiveness / Shame	Disconnection / Rejection	If they knew me, they would go	What would they see if the mask dropped?
Social Isolation / Alienation	Disconnection / Rejection	I do not belong anywhere	Where have you never quite fit?
Dependence / Incompetence	Impaired Autonomy	I cannot handle ordinary life	What feels impossible without someone else?
Vulnerability to Harm	Impaired Autonomy	Disaster is about to hit	What catastrophe are you bracing for?
Enmeshment / Undeveloped Self	Impaired Autonomy	I disappear inside them	Where do you end and they begin?
Failure	Impaired Autonomy	I will never measure up	Where did you decide you were behind?
Entitlement / Grandiosity	Impaired Limits	Rules are for other people	What feels unfair about ordinary limits?
Insufficient Self-Control	Impaired Limits	I cannot stand the wait	What do you reach for when the feeling hits?
Subjugation	Other-Directedness	If I take up space, I get hurt	What happens if you say no out loud?
Self-Sacrifice	Other-Directedness	Their need comes first	What would it cost you to keep something?
Approval-Seeking	Other-Directedness	I am only as good as their yes	Whose reaction still runs your week?
Negativity / Pessimism	Overvigilance / Inhibition	The good part will fall apart	What are you waiting to go wrong?
Emotional Inhibition	Overvigilance / Inhibition	Feeling out loud is unsafe	Which feeling is not allowed in the room?
Unrelenting Standards	Overvigilance / Inhibition	Done is never done	What would “good enough” cost you?
Punitiveness	Overvigilance / Inhibition	Mistakes deserve pain	Who still has to pay when someone slips?

Authored by Amara Collins, a clinical psychologist who writes about continuity of care: how a schema named in one hour still has to be readable when the next clinician opens the chart.

They listed every way they are too much, then they went polite. You could recite the 18 maladaptive schemas. You could also find which two still organize this week.

That is the job of the list of schemas in outpatient therapy. You already know the names. You use them as session language: domain, how it sounds, one question, then two or three schemas in a working formulation the next visit can still use.

Young, Klosko, and Weishaar grouped the 18 early maladaptive schemas into five domains in their practitioner’s guide. The Schema Therapy Institute keeps the same names on 18 Early Schemas Defined. Use those names. Do not paste the Institute’s copyrighted definitions into a handout, and do not rebuild YSQ items from memory.

For mode matching in the room, leave this table. Use schema therapy basics for therapists. For the form, the scoring key that ships with it, and what a quiet profile is allowed to mean, use the schema questionnaire. If the hour is a borderline-range presentation and you need the mode protocol rather than a trait list, use schema therapy for borderline personality disorder.

Educational content for licensed therapists, not clinical or legal advice. Schema names are a clinical map. Formal schema therapy, imagery rescripting, chair work, and limited reparenting sit in their own training, supervision, and scope.

How you use the list of schemas in this hour

Say the job before you name a row. The list of schemas is for a lasting theme, not a grade for this Tuesday. If they answer only about last night’s fight, you do not yet have a schema. Ask how true the line has been over years, then pick the row that matches the voice in the chair.

Do not walk the 18 names as a lecture. Pick the two or three that organize behavior this month. A client who can recite every schema is not formulated. A client who can tell you when defectiveness shows up at review, and what they do next, is.

The “how it sounds” column is a starting phrase, not a quote you put in their mouth. If their language is different, write theirs. The question is one bid. If it tightens the room, stop and use your usual risk pathway. A loud punitiveness row is not a safety plan.

If the clinical question is which mode is driving this hour, put the list of schemas down. YSQ scores and schema names do not name Vulnerable Child or Detached Protector. You still have to read the state in the chair.

Download the trauma schema pack to carry the schema names, formulation prompts, and next-visit questions into your clinical work.

Turn two or three rows into a case conceptualization

A named schema is a hypothesis, not the formulation. L.M. sounds like defectiveness and unrelenting standards. The next clinical move is to ask where those themes still organize the week, then write a working explanation you can revise.

Take the loud schemas into the case conceptualization structure you already use: presenting pattern, what loaded them, what keeps them running, and what still protects. “Defectiveness” does not belong as a diagnosis line. It belongs as: when review is coming, L.M. treats ordinary feedback as proof they are fake, overprepares, and goes quiet with friends.

Keep the coping simple. Young describes surrender, avoidance, and overcompensation as the usual ways a schema stays in charge. Write the one that is running, in this client’s language. Do not stack all three on every row.

Do not average a loud interview with a quiet YSQ and call it a moderate profile. The list of schemas is one informant. You are the other. If you scored a form, keep the counts on the questionnaire page. Keep this sheet for the names you are actually using.

The filled sheet is the pattern. Use the blank fields when you are charting a real hour. Fictional initials only on the example.

Do not hand the table to them as a quiz. Do not paste Institute definition paragraphs into the blanks.

Where the next visit finds the names

The loud names from the list of schemas, the formulation line, and the next test have to sit in one record or Thursday starts from rumor. You still pick the names, ask the question, and sign what is true.

References

• Young, J. E., Klosko, J. S., & Weishaar, M. E. (2003). Schema therapy: A practitioner’s guide. Guilford Press.
• Schema Therapy Institute. (2012). 18 Early Schemas Defined.
• Schema Therapy Institute. (n.d.). Schema Therapy order center.