Although the link between Early Maladaptive Schemas and many psychopathological manifestations has been confirmed, there is still not enough research examining the mechanism by which this link is realized. The aim of this study was to examine whether psychological inflexibility could be a mediator of the relationship between early maladaptive schemas grouped in schema domains and problems in current functioning, manifested through depression, anxiety and stress symptoms. Among the instruments used were the Young’s Schema Questionnaire, the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales. The sample included 320 subjects (Nfemales = 215; M = 33.5; SD = 9.6). The results indicate significant connections of psychological inflexibility with all scheme domains and all criterion variables, with this connection being the strongest in relation to depression (r = .74, p < .01) and autonomy impairment domain (r = .74, p < .01). Schema domains are important predictors of criterion variables, provided that the highest percentage of explained variance is in relation to depression. Psychological inflexibility has been shown to be a partial mediator of all relations between all schema domains and manifestations of depression, anxiety and stress. Although schema domains still have a significant direct effect on psychopathological manifestations, in the case of impaired limits when it comes to anxiety (b = .045; p<.05, 95% BCa CI [.03, .05]) and depression (b = .06, p<.05, 95% BCa CI [.04, .07]) the difference between the indirect and direct effect is most evident, while in the case of stress the greatest difference between the effects is in relation to the domain of autonomy impairment (b = .07, p < .05, 95% BCa CI [.05, .08]). The implications for the integration of schema therapy and third wave cognitive-behavioral therapy are discussed. Keywords: early maladaptive schemas, schema domains, psychological flexibility, depression, stress, anxiety

The aim of this study was to examine the theoretical model of psychological flexibility proposed by creators of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. To do this, we investigated the structural and convergent validity of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II, translated into the Serbian language. The study was performed on 1781 Serbian speaking adults. By methods of robust confirmatory factor analysis, two models have been tested. The best fit was achieved with the data-driven model constructed by adding three pairs of correlated residuals to the original hypothesized model of latent structure. This model demonstrated it`s structural invariance across samples divided by gender and by previous experience with services provided by mental health professionals. Excellent convergent validity of the scale was demonstrated through adequate correlations with indicators of subjective well-being, styles of emotional regulation, and coping strategies. Our findings suggest that the Serbian adaptation of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II is a valid and reliable measure of behavioral avoidance, implicating that the construct of psychological flexibility has been demonstrated as conceptually similar to those previously found across various languages and cultural contexts.

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