Pschemas, Psychopathology, and Psychotherapy Research

This paper examines the concept of a schema as a theoretical construct that is relevant to the goals of psychotherapy researchers. It first differentiates between the terms identity diffusion and identity confusion, phenomena that have been portrayed by artists but have not been accessible to empirical research. A schema is defined as a collection of interassociated mental representations that function together as a unit. Implications of the concept are illustrated with results from the literature on depression. Then the concept is applied to people's descriptions of the self and other people. Identity diffusion seems to involve a vague schema, whereas identity confusion seems to involve a shifting between contrasting schemas. A study is described in which an attachment in terview was administered to grief-stricken adults, who were then classified as autonomous, detached, or enmeshed. People with a detached attachment style generally avoid intimate engagement, so their descriptions of themselves and other people should be vague with weakly interassociated elements. People with an enmeshed style have acquired contrasting or contradictory schemas of themselves and other people, so their descriptions should contain contrasting schemas. Data are presented to support these hypotheses.