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Maladaptive Schemas and Psychopathology in Adolescence: On the Utility of Young’s Schema Theory in Youth

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Abstract

The present article reports on two studies that investigated the utility of Young’s cognitive theory Young et al. (Schema therapy: A practitioner’s guide, Guilford Publications, New York, 2003) in adolescents. Study 1 focused on the factorial validity of the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ) in youth. In Study 2, the dimensionality of Young’s schemas and their (content-specific) association with psychopathology were investigated. In Study 1, 635 adolescents were asked to complete the YSQ. In Study 2, participants were 112 non-referred and 104 referred adolescents. They were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV–Child edition and completed the YSQ and the Youth Self Report. Their parents were asked to fill out the Child Behavior Checklist. It was demonstrated that Young’s theoretically proposed taxonomy of schemas and domains can be retrieved in adolescents. Referred youth displayed a higher severity of maladaptive schemas as compared with non-referred adolescents. A content-specific association of schemas and psychopathology was established. Young’s schema theory might constitute a valuable framework to understand psychopathology in youth.

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Notes

  1. The DSM-oriented scales were used to investigate the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis. Particularly the subscales ‘affective problems’, anxiety problems’ oppositional defiant problems’ and ‘conduct problems’ were selected, because for these four forms of psychopathology we were able to formulate literature-based (Beck 1976; Beck et al. 1985; Clark et al. 1999) concrete hypotheses on content specificity.

  2. One could argue that we should have controlled for comorbidity by including only cases of ‘pure’ mood, anxiety, oppositional defiant or conduct disorder. However, only 8 adolescents fulfilled criteria for ‘pure’ mood disorder, only 13 adolescents fulfilled criteria for ‘pure’ anxiety disorder, only 8 adolescents fulfilled criteria for ‘pure’ oppositional defiant disorder and only 12 adolescents fulfilled criteria for ‘pure’ conduct disorder. As we were concerned with the power and hence the reliability of analyses with that few cases in one of both categories, we decided to include comorbid cases in the categorical analyses.

  3. Tables with a complete account of correlations between schemas, and correlations between schemas and dimensional psychopathology measures are available from the authors upon request.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by a doctoral fellowship awarded to the first author by the Fund for Scientific Research–Flanders (Belgium). The authors are grateful to the psychologists at the participating centres for the assistance provided. Also, we would like to sincerely thank Saskia Mels for her help in the collection of the data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Leen Van Vlierberghe, Caroline Braet & Guy Bosmans

  2. Department of Data Analysis, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 1, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Yves Rosseel

  3. Department of Educational Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018, VZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Susan Bögels

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  1. Leen Van Vlierberghe
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  2. Caroline Braet
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  4. Yves Rosseel
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Correspondence to Caroline Braet.

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Van Vlierberghe, L., Braet, C., Bosmans, G. et al. Maladaptive Schemas and Psychopathology in Adolescence: On the Utility of Young’s Schema Theory in Youth. Cogn Ther Res 34, 316–332 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9283-5

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