Core Schemas and Suicidality in a Chronically Traumatized Population

Abstract

The Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ) has been demonstrated to tap into core beliefs, or maladaptive schemas, of clinical populations. This study used the YSQ to investigate maladaptive schemas of 137 chronically traumatized patients seeking outpatient psychiatric treatment and to assess whether specific schemas might be associated with suicide risk in this population. Participants completed a modified version of the YSQ-S (short form), post-traumatic diagnostic scale, dissociative experiences scale and self-harm and risk behaviors questionnaire-revised at treatment intake. Significant correlations were found between most YSQ scales and the post-traumatic diagnostic scale, and between all YSQ scales and the dissociative experiences scale. Suicide risk variables were most highly correlated with the social isolation/alienation, defectiveness/shame and failure YSQ scales, suggesting that these schemas may mark individuals at particularly high risk for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. These results offer important implications for the assessment and treatment of high-risk traumatized patients.

Early Maladaptive Schemas in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety Disorders

“…Findings of researches confirm a relation between EMSs and depression disorder (Abela, Auerbach, Sarin, & Lakdawalla, 2009;Lumley & Harkness, 2007;Riso & Newman, 2003). Moreover, patients suffering from anxiety disorders obtained higher scores in a number of EMSs (Brewin, Andrews, & Valentine, 2000;Cockram, Drummond, & Lee, 2010;Delattre et al, 2004;Dutra, Callahan, Forman, Mendelsohn, & Herman, 2008;Hedley, Hoffart, & Sexton, 2001;Hinrichsen, Waller, & Emanuelli, 2004;Pinto-Gouveia et al, 2006). As mentioned above, findings show that EMSs varies in different disorders.…”

“…However some researches can be mentioned in this filed such as Delattre et al (2004) about EMSs of anxiety disorders (Delattre et al, 2004); Hedley et al (2001) and Kwak & Lee (2015) about schemas of panic disorder (Hedley et al, 2001;Kwak & Lee, 2015); Hinrichsen (2004) (Hinrichsen et al, 2004) and Pinto Gouveya et al (2006) (Pinto-Gouveia et al, 2006) about EMSs of social anxiety disorder; Edworthy et al (2008) (Edworthy, Chasey, & Williams, 2008), Dutra et al (2008) (Dutra et al, 2008), and Cockram et al (2010) (Cockram et al, 2010) about EMSs of post-traumatic stress disorder; Atalay et al (2008) (Atalay, Atalay, Karahan, & Çaliskan, 2008), Noie et al (2009) (Noie, Farid, Fata, & Ashoori, 2010), Lochner et al (2005) (Lochner et al, 2005), Kim et al (2014) (Kim, Lee, & Lee, 2014) about EMSs of OCD disorder. Their most important limitations are as following: first, none of them is based on DSM-5 in which OCD is studied in a separate category from anxiety disorders; second, they do not compare OCD and anxiety disorders groups alongside a control group.…”

The Relationship Between Personality Characteristics and Early Maladaptive Schema With Suicide Ideation in Iranian Late Adolescents

“…The previous study had showed that EMSs were positively and significantly linked with suicide ideation (e.g. Dutra, Callahan, Forman, Mendelsohn, & Herman, 2008). This result confirmed the claim of Young, Klosko, and Weishaar (2003) that mentioned EMSs are self-destructive, affective and cognitive patterns and cause significant functional impairments during life.…”

“…Previous researches have shown that schemas of disconnection and rejection among other schemas have been more efficient in predicting suicide ideation (Dutra et al, 2008;Ahmadian Gorji et al, 2009), depression (Renner, Lobbestael, Peeters, Arntz, & Huibers, 2012) and neuroticism (Sava, 2009) that they are directly linked with suicide ideation. Thus, it can be concluded that the disconnection and rejection domain is a better predictor of suicide ideation than other domains.…”

“…In one research, it was demonstrated that negative schemas and less positive schemas in the group with suicide ideation were more common than the group with nonsuicide ideation (Fialko et al, 2006). The results of a study on 137 patients with post-traumatic stress disorder indicated that social isolation/alienation, defectiveness/ shame, failure, dependence/incompetence, subjugation of needs, emotional inhibition, and unrelenting standards schemas were linked with suicide ideation; while social isolation/alienation, defectiveness/shame, failure, dependence/incompetence, and enmeshment schemas were correlated with suicide plan; also defectiveness/shame and failure schemas were related to suicide attempt (Dutra, Callahan, Forman, Mendelsohn, & Herman, 2008).…”