Seattle Anxiety Specialists - Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychotherapy

Self-Schemas

OVERVIEW

In psychology, the term “schema” is used to describe a cognitive structure representing a person’s knowledge about some entity or situation, including its qualities and the relationships between them.[1] They are usually abstractions – a collection of basic knowledge – used to simplify a person’s understanding of a particular subject. Schemas are important for organizing and consolidating knowledge about highly convoluted concepts, making them more easily accessible for comprehension. We also hold many different schemas about ourselves. The American Psychological Association defines a self-schema as a categorized set of beliefs about the self that guides a person’s perception of the world, influencing what information draws the individual’s attention as well as how that information is evaluated and retained.[2] Importantly, these self-schemas are not always true. Despite overwhelming evidence in favor of a certain reality about oneself, a contradicting outlook or assumption that an individual has of their self can endure. In this way, self-schemas can differ substantially from the true “self”. Maladaptive self-schemas, in particular, can be pervasive and have detrimental effects on our behavior, wellbeing and perception of reality. Understanding our own self-schemas and learning of the available therapeutic approaches for reworking self-schemas can be critical for personal growth and wellbeing.

TEMPORAL DEPTH OF SELF-SCHEMAS

Schemas are derived from experience; once established in memory, they function as organizing frameworks that enable a person to draw inferences from, attribute meaning to, and act upon a given stimulus.[3] They are the cognitive foundation of purposive thought and action. Self-schemas are unique in that they are established in domains that the person values, including physical characteristics, social roles, personality traits and areas of particular interest and skill.[4] All our various self-schemas combine and interact to form our self-concept, which is a rich, multifaceted cognitive structure, representing the total collection of cognitions about the self (including self-schemas, possible selves and other less fully elaborated self-images).[5] 

Beliefs about the self extend across a rich temporal depth. People have available in memory conceptions of who they are in the present, and also images of who they were in the past and visions of who they might be in the future. These future-oriented representations, referred to as “possible selves”, are conceptions of the self one expects, fears, wishes and ought to be.[6] These possible self-schemas are highly individualized, pointing to specific desires and/or fears about the future of who a person might be. Possible selves have been shown to play a powerful role in motivating and regulating goal-directed behavior. Studies have shown that discrepancies between peoples’ current conceptions of themselves and their desired or hoped-for selves are reliably linked to specific affective states. Furthermore, highly detailed images of the self at various stages in pursuit of a desired goal shape and organize the enacted behaviors. Ruvolo and Markus (1992) showed that in a college-student sample, persistence and effort expended on a tedious cognitive task were influenced by the possible selves activated in memory.[7] People who imagined themselves as successful in the future out-performed those who imagined negative outcomes. Overall, our self-schemas have major implications when it comes to achieving the sort of “self” we want to become.

SEEING SELF THROUGH OTHERs 

Importantly, self-schemas develop in conjunction with the social environment. Categorizations and evaluations of one’s physical and behavioral characteristics made both by the self and others are the means by which schemas are established.[8] In addition, internalized cultural values and norms serve as the foundation upon which a self-schema can be formed. The ability to experience ourselves as another – oneself through the eyes of another person – is critical to the ability to engage in self-evaluation and curate a self-image characteristic of the “narrative self”. The exhibition of “secondary emotions” such as embarrassment, shame and pride in children demonstrate a propensity toward an evaluation of the self in relation to the social world – they begin to have others in mind, existing “though” in addition to “with” others.[9]

Often, there is a profound discrepancy between what one feels from within and what is public to the outside – between what one perceives as self-representing and what he or she thinks or is actually perceived by others. This is an irreconcilable gap which forms one of the core issues of self-consciousness. This contemplative self-awareness involves the ability to consider what kind of person one is, or to ask how one ought to live or to reflect on what one holds most valuable. Importantly, these much more sophisticated, reflective modes of self-awareness require us to construct (consciously or unconsciously) complex self-representations or models of ourselves – a self-image that may or may not align with our actual full identity.[10]

SELF-SCHEMAS SHAPE SELF

Self-schemas are considered active, working structures that shape perceptions, memories, emotional and behavioral responses and certainly affect our actual full identities.[11] People are more likely to direct their attention to information that is consistent with an established self-schema, process information more quickly, and have greater recall for schema-consistent versus schema-irrelevant information. Self-schemas also guide and predict future behavior in a given domain of self. Furthermore, because self-schemas include procedural knowledge such as rules, strategies and routines, they give organization and form to behavior in a given domain of self. In this way, self-schemas manifest themselves in habitual ways of thinking and acting. With a self-schema that is aligned with a person’s goals, it can be conducive to positive growth and wellbeing. Conversely, maladaptive self-schemas can not only distort our present conception of self, but can also harm any possibility for self-growth beyond the schema.

TRAPPED IN A SELF-SCHEMA

Dominant, maladaptive schemas can keep us trapped in a disordered view of self and contribute to many mental health problems. Maladaptive schemas distort thinking about the world, oneself and one’s relationship with others, arising from the interaction between an individual's emotional temperament and aversive early life experiences.[12] Subsequent adult psychopathology can arise from initiation and maintenance of these established core beliefs.[13] Since these schemas influence what we attend to and how we interpret things, they can bias and distort our thoughts, perceptions, and behaviors. Maladaptive self-schemas can look like a fundamentally deprecated view of self. Nicol et al. (2021) note that early maladaptive schemas may be a cognitive vulnerability factor in nonsuicidal self-injury.[14] Within the structure of clinically depressed individuals, negative information pertaining to the self tends to be well organized and interconnected while positive material becomes less well integrated within an individual’s self-concept when they experience relapse.[15] Furthermore, depressed individuals may filter or distort environmental information in direct relationship to their self perceptions. In their assessment of the consistency of the self-schema in depression consisting of 72 college students (32 depressed and 40 nondepressed), researchers Ross et al. (1986) found that depressed college students were more inconsistent in their self-schema than their nondepressed counterparts.[16] Nondepressed and mildly depressed students used different information processing strategies: nondepressed students relied on congruence with the self-schema, while depressed students used a strategy based on familiarity or distinctiveness. Thus, while the self-schema in depression is certainly pervasive, it also tends to be quite inconsistent. The result is a fundamentally negative and fragmented view of self, where the depressed individual simultaneously thinks of themself poorly and struggles with defining self-identity. 

Negative core schemas have also been shown to be associated with phenomenological aspects of auditory visual hallucinations. Paulik (2012) found that voice-related distress was found to be independently linked to negative social schemas, with voice hearers feeling inferior in relation to the voices, when they perceived a lower social rank of self relative to others.[17] This finding illustrates a conception of self that is inherently dependent on the social other. Additionally, researchers Smith et al. (2006) found that both the amount and intensity of voice-related distress are positively associated with negative core schemas about the self.[18] Importantly, these negative core schemas can transcend present beliefs and have major implications for our defining one’s future self. In the development and maintenance of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), in particular, this concept of feared self-perceptions becomes especially prevalent. Aardema et al. (2017) concluded that fear of some possible future self was highly characteristic among OCD patients with unwanted repugnant thoughts and impulses.[19] In addition, fear of self‐perceptions were significantly more elevated in those with eating or body dysmorphic disorders relative to the other non‐clinical and clinical groups. The construct of a “feared possible self” may be particularly relevant in disorders where negative self‐perception is a dominant theme, either involving concerns about one's inner self or concerns related to perceived bodily faults.

THERAPEUTIC IMPLICATIONS OF “POSSIBLE SELVES”

On the other hand, this unique human ability to imagine some other possible self can actually have very promising therapeutic implications. In their analysis of the personal nature of depression, researchers Laidlaw et al. (2001) found that depressed participants adopt a more negative view of self in comparison to their imagined pre-morbid view of self.[20] During a depressive episode, participants typically rate themselves higher in terms of neuroticism, and lower on in terms of their extraversion, in comparison to their view of self when not depressed. However, when the same participants are asked to temporarily ignore their symptoms of depression and describe themselves prior to this onset, the reverse finding was obtained. Thus, during a depressive episode, individuals are able to provide a view of themselves that is significantly different to that of their current depressed view of self – two different types of personality representation. Further, the personality representation given when participants were asked to temporarily ignore their symptoms of depression was far more congruent with descriptions of the participant provided by their close friend and family members. Participants would appear to be able to distinguish relatively transitory mood-dependent negative information about the self from other less negative and relatively enduring views of their personality or schemata. The results suggest that even in depression, people are able to, at least temporarily, detach their thinking from their mood state, providing tentative support for the existence of multi-level processes in the determination of the concept of self.[21]

The findings of this study have major potential for the psycho-education of depressed patients in clinical settings. The results here show the pervasiveness of depression thinking in that it attacks a person’s sense of who they really are. At the same time, the results suggest that thinking may be mood-influenced or biased. Thus, it would be fruitful for a clinician to pursue a methodology that allows their patients to access an alternative view of self. This might look like asking patients to provide descriptions of themselves before and during depression, and exploring which view of self has the “best evidence” for reality.[22] Similarly, it may be useful for clinicians to explore with the patient how they think another person would view them. More broadly, the findings of this study contribute to a rich philosophical discourse surrounding conflicting views of self. It may be productive for a clinician to discuss the idea that people can hold two views on a single subject, even if these views appear contradictory. It may be the case that in depression, people hold contradictory views, seeing themselves as worthless while at the same time recognizing that they are also competent.

SELF-SCHEMA VS. SELF: A CRITICAL DISTINCTION

A critical first step in combating maladaptive self-schemas is to properly distinguish between self-schemas and the self. There is an essential epistemological and metaphysical difference between the self and the means by which we may access the self through self-schemas. Self-schemas can be a telling marker of self, but this is as far as they go. While self-schemas can provide good evidence for a certain type of self, the self, as an objective, independent entity, cannot be understood in its totality through these highly subjective schemas. Still, the existence of any human experience requires the existence of self, and the self is the premise of the existence of human experience. The fact that selfhood gives rise to first person experience but cannot be understood through experience refers to the “epistemological paradox” about the self.[23] This is a seemingly paralyzing challenge of needing to suspend our own self-consciousness that is inherently perspectival and egocentric in order to truly grasp the self as an independent, objective entity. Many philosophers and psychologists alike have deemed this paradox irreconcilable, and, as a result, we should analyze the self at most as a complex set or “bundle” of suitably interrelated events.[24] Whether the self in this context exists at all is a separate question, and a big one, indeed. However, it remains clinically relevant to teach patients that they, as selves, are not their mere self-schemas, and that they have agency over these schemas. Schema therapy, which combines elements of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychoanalysis, Gestalt therapy and related approaches, is specifically designed to challenge maladaptive schemas.[25] The aim of schema therapy is to help the individual recognize their behavior, understand the underlying cause(s), and change their thoughts and behaviors so that they’re better able to cope with relationship challenges or emotions in healthy, productive ways.[26]

The tendency to equate one’s essential selfhood with a singular self-schema becomes particularly problematic and potentially dangerous when this schema is overwhelmingly negative (such as those characteristic of depression). By conflating a singular self-schema and even our broader self-concept as a fixed entity, the ability to transcend our schemas and grow as a complex self becomes extremely difficult. McWilliams (2010) explains how psychological dysfunction becomes exacerbated by “confusing relative, dependent, impermanent and empty conventional reality with inherent truth and ultimate reality, and treating conventional beliefs and concepts as ultimately true”.[27] It is critical to remember that schemas prioritize efficiency and oftentimes fall short in validity. Those habitual patterns of thinking, feeling, reacting and behaving that characterize how we experience and express our "self" in daily life are like a well-maintained, multi-lane, high-speed super-highway: fast, convenient and readily accessed.[28] 

We may mistakenly believe that this super-highway of interconnected thoughts, feelings and behaviors reflects our "true nature." We may even come to believe “this is me; this is mine; this is my Self”.[29] When we recognize the subjectivity and potential fallibility of our schemas, it becomes evident that we have agency over these schemas. Thus, we should view psychological problems within the context of a system of meaning that we create for organizing and understanding experience. When meanings that people create to understand and guide their lives fail to aid effective life negotiation, psychotherapy can help clients examine and reconsider these understandings.[30] McWilliams adds that therapists can help patients “challenge their existing constructions and assist clients in reconstructing their life story, inventing new self-identities and experimenting with alternative and more effective ways of meaning making”.[31] Reconceptualizing our self-schemas in ways that emphasize fluidity and interdependence can gift us a great sense of autonomy when it comes to navigating debilitating psychological disorders, regardless of whether an “objective”, “independent” self exists metaphysically.

If you feel you may be struggling with a disordered view of self, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional (e.g., a psychotherapist, psychologist or psychiatrist) to discuss possible therapeutic options and treatment modalities.

Contributed by: Sara Wilson

Editor: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D.

REFERENCES

1 American Psychological Association. APA Dictionary of Psychology: Schema. American Psychological Association. https://dictionary.apa.org/schema

2 Cherry, K. (2022, May 6). Understanding Self-Schema in Psychology. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-self-schema-2795026

3 Ibid.

4 Stein, K. F. (1995). Schema Model of the Self-Concept. The Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 27(3), 187–193. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1547-5069.1995.tb00857.x  

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ruvolo, A. P., & Markus, H. R. (1992). Possible selves and performance: The power of self-relevant imagery. Social Cognition, 10(1), 95-124. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1992.10.1.95

8 Stein (1995)

9. Rochat, P. (2009). Others in Mind : Social Origins of Self-Consciousness. Cambridge University Press.

10 MacKenzie, M. (2008). Self-Awareness without a Self: Buddhism and the Reflexivity of Awareness. Asian Philosophy, 18(3), 245–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/09552360802440025

11 Stein (1995)

12 Saddichha, S., Kumar, A., & Pradhan, N. (2012, June). Cognitive Schemas Among Mental Health Professionals: Adaptive or Maladaptive?. Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634288/

13 Ibid.

14 Nicol, A., Mak, A. S., Murray, K., & Kavanagh, P. S. (2021). Early maladaptive schemas in young people who self‐injure. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 77(7), 1745-1762. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23172

15 Dozois, D. J. A., & Dobson, K. S. (2003). The structure of the self-schema in clinical depression: Differences related to episode recurrence. Cognition and Emotion, 17(6), 933-941. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930244000363

16 Ross, M. J., Mueller, J. H., & De La Torre, M. (1986). Depression and Trait Distinctiveness in the Self-Schema. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 4(1), 46–59. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.1986.4.1.46  

17 Kusztrits, I., Toh, W. L., Thomas, N., Larøi, F., Meyers, D., Hirnstein, M., & Rossell, S. (2022). From core schemas about the self and others to voice phenomenology: Anxiety and depression affect voice hearers differently. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 95, 493– 507. https://doi-org.exlibris.colgate.edu/10.1111/papt.12384

18 Ibid.

19 Aardema, F., Moulding, R., Melli, G., Radomsky, A. S., Doron, G., Audet, J., & Purcell‐Lalonde, M. (2018). The role of feared possible selves in obsessive–compulsive and related disorders: A comparative analysis of a core cognitive self‐construct in clinical samples. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 25(1), e19-e29. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2121

20 Laidlaw, K., & Davidson, K. M. (2001). The Personal Nature of Depression: Assessing the Operation of Self-Schema in Depression. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 8(2), 97-105. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.282

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Wang, K. (2021). The “one mind, two aspects” model of the self: The self model and self-cultivation theory of Chinese buddhism. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.652465

24 Schneider, S., Velmans, M., & Bermúdez, J. L. (2017). Self-Consciousness. In The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness (pp. 472–483). essay, Wiley-Blackwell.

25 Sussex Publishers. (2022, May). Schema Therapy. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/schema-therapy  

26 Ibid.

27 McWilliams, S. A. (2010). Inherent Self, Invented Self, Empty Self: Constructivism, Buddhism, and Psychotherapy. Counseling and Values, 55(1), 79–100. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-007x.2010.tb00023.x

28 Yale School of Medicine: Psychiatry. Phase I - Schema Awareness. Spiritual Self-Schema Development Program. https://medicine.yale.edu/spiritualselfschema/about/guide/phase1/  

29 Ibid.

30 McWilliams (2010)

31 Ibid.