An individual’s schema is the foundation of their cognition, behaviour, and affective response. In order to properly diagnose and treat their maladaptive cognition, behaviour, and affect, you first need to map their internal and external schema. The assessment below will assist in that process.
Three Elements
The Schematic Mapping Assessment contains three separate elements.
Element 1: Psychological Need Requirements (Self Schema)
The first element of the Schematic Mapping Assessment is to understand the psychological needs requirements of the individual.
While all individuals will lean towards either agentic or relatedness psychological needs as their dominant needs, the hierarchical order of the needs as well as the amount of each need will vary from individual to individual.
This element of the Schematic Mapping Assessment will help identify which of the psychological needs is the highest priority for the individual and what level of that need fulfilment is required for the individual to be satisfied and to move to the next need in their own hierarchical order.
The results of this mapping provide a spiderweb that shows the iindividual at the centre of the web with their psychological needs positioned in a spiderweb around that centre. The distance that the need is positioned from the centre indicates how much of a priority that need is to the individual.
Element 2: Need Fulfillment Pathway (World Schema)
The second element of the Schematic Mapping Assessment is the Need Fulfillment Pathway assessment. This assessment will help to determine how the individual believes/currently does fulfil their psychological needs. This is their map of the world. Their World Schema.
Element 3: Need Fulfillment Success
The final element of the Schematic Mapping Assessment is to determine how successful the individual is at fulfiling their psychological needs.
The results of this mapping laid over the Psychological Needs Requirements output in a second web. The distance from the individual in the centre shows how much that need has been fulfilled.
Related Scales to Explore
Beck’s Dysfunctional Attitude Scale as it assesses self-schema and might have useful elements.