Everybody has Schemas and they usually help us get through the overload of information from the outer world. When a schema becomes maladaptive the issue appears. These maladaptive schemas arise at a coping mechanism as a child.
Schemas are outs minds representation of the outer work though our past experiences, specifically from childhood and adolescence. A schemas which was adaptive when you were a child, for example if someone came from a overcritical family, may not be adaptive in adult life as they find they are over-criticising themselves or the people around them, causing low self-esteem or relationship breakdowns.
All schemas have the ability to become maladaptive, but here are some common ones for the development of Personality Disorders:
Abandonment/Instability
Mistrust/Abuse
Emotional Deprivation
Failure
Punitiveness
These and more are explained on the MindfullnessMuse website.
As our schemas are formed from life experiences it is also possible to overwrite and relearn them to create an adaptive schema (or lessen the effect of the maladaptive schema). Possible ways of doing this are:
Identify a couple of the maladaptive schemas that you think effect you the most. Slowly reteach yourself that your initial thoughts in that situation are incorrect and think with your ‘rational adult’ mind to create a new Schema.
Ask those around you to give their view. As our schemas are created by outside experiences it is possible use the outer world to change.