Early maladaptive schemas in a sample of British adolescent sexual abusers: implications for therapy

Abstract

This study describes the results of the administration of the Young Schema Questionnaire in a British sample of 54 sexually abusive adolescents. This questionnaire is a measurement of the 16 Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMSs) as conceptualized by Young in his schema model of psychopathology. A clinical group of 40 was differentiated from a non-clinical group of 14 on the basis of their respective scores on the questionnaire. In the clinical group the highest scores were for the emotional inhibition, social isolation/alienation and mistrust/abuse maladaptive schemas. Within this clinical group, schema scores were found to differentiate subjects who had sexually abused children from those had sexually assaulted peer-aged or adult females. Schema scores also distinguished subjects with a prior history of sexual victimization from those without this history. The results provided evidence of (1) heterogeneity within the overall sample in terms of the presence of maladaptive schemas and (2) heterogeneity across sub-groups in terms of their scores on particular maladaptive schemas. It was concluded that some sexually abusive adolescents have therapeutic needs that would be met only through the provision of schema-focused therapy to address these maladaptive schemas.

Keywords:

• Adolescent sexual abusers
• early maladaptive schemas
• schema domains
• schema therapy