Free Therapist Training›Schema Therapy Toolkit›Measures Guide
Last updated: November 11, 2026
Questionnaires give a schema therapy assessment a line of evidence that does not depend on what the client remembers to mention in session. The two best-established measures come from the Schema Therapy Institute: the Young Schema Questionnaire, which measures schemas, and the Schema Mode Inventory, which measures modes. A third, the Maladaptive Schema Scale, was published in 2025 as an open-source alternative. The case conceptualization form in the free schema therapy toolkit has space to record the results of each.
How Do the Three Measures Compare?
The table sets the three measures side by side. Item counts are for the versions named.
| Young Schema Questionnaire | Schema Mode Inventory | Maladaptive Schema Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it measures | The 18 early maladaptive schemas | Schema modes: 14 in the short form | 27 schemas: versions of most traditional early maladaptive schemas, some renamed or split, and nine newer ones |
| Current versions | YSQ-L3, 232 items; YSQ-S3, 90 items | Short SMI (Lobbestael et al., 2010), 118 items; the Institute now sells a version labeled SMI 1.1 and does not publish its item count | MSS, 108 items |
| Rating scale | 6 points, from completely untrue of me to describes me perfectly | 6 points, from never or hardly ever to always | 5 points, from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) |
| Developed by | Jeffrey Young | Young et al. (2007) | Buchanan et al. (2025) |
| How clinicians obtain it | Buy it from the Schema Therapy Institute | Buy it from the Schema Therapy Institute, in the same bundle | Free, from the article or NovoPsych |
| Terms | Copyright Jeffrey Young; no reproduction without written consent | The Institute's terms for all schema inventories | Open source; free for clinical and research use, according to its developers |
What Does the Young Schema Questionnaire Measure?
The Young Schema Questionnaire asks clients to rate how well a series of statements describes them, and its scores show which of the eighteen early maladaptive schemas are most prominent. The current long form, the YSQ-L3, has 232 items (Saggino et al., 2018), and the short form, the YSQ-S3, has five items for each schema, 90 in all (Lee et al., 2015). Both use a six-point scale that runs from completely untrue of me to describes me perfectly. The Schema Therapy Institute describes the earlier second-edition forms as out of date.
Jeffrey Young holds the copyright, and the questionnaire may not be reproduced without his written consent. The Institute sells the YSQ with its other inventories as an eBook or PDF licensed to the buyer for one year, and its license forbids placing the inventories online, reproducing them in publications, translating them, or using a shortened version or a subset of items without the Institute's written permission (Schema Therapy Institute, n.d.-a, n.d.-b).
What Does the Schema Mode Inventory (SMI) Measure?
The Schema Mode Inventory measures how often a client experiences each schema mode, on a six-point scale from never or hardly ever to always. Its 118-item short form was validated with 863 participants, both non-patients and patients, and showed a fourteen-factor structure (Lobbestael et al., 2010). The fourteen modes are the Vulnerable Child, Angry Child, Enraged Child, Impulsive Child, Undisciplined Child and Happy Child; the Compliant Surrender, Detached Protector, Detached Self-Soother, Self-Aggrandizer and Bully and Attack coping modes; the Punitive Parent and Demanding Parent; and the Healthy Adult.
The SMI was developed by Young et al. (2007) and is published by the Schema Therapy Institute, which now sells a version called SMI 1.1 in the same bundle as the YSQ and under the same terms. A research version, the SMI-2, extended the inventory to eighteen modes proposed for specific personality disorders (Bamelis et al., 2011).
What Is the Maladaptive Schema Scale?
The Maladaptive Schema Scale is an open-source questionnaire that Buchanan et al. (2025) published in the journal Assessment. Its 108 items cover 27 schemas, versions of most traditional early maladaptive schemas, some renamed or split, and nine newer ones such as Unfairness, Meaningless World and Lack of Coherent Identity, and each item is rated from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). In the development study all 27 schemas fit the Rasch model acceptably.
The validation article is open access, and its supplementary material contains the full scale. All four authors work at NovoPsych, which offers the scale, a manual and schema descriptions as free downloads on its Maladaptive Schema Scale page and describes the scale as free for clinical and research use (NovoPsych, n.d.). Because its 27 schemas do not map one to one onto Young's eighteen, scores from the MSS and the YSQ are not interchangeable.
How Do Questionnaire Results Fit Into a Case Conceptualization?
A questionnaire score is a hypothesis to test against the rest of the assessment: the client's account of current problems, the history of unmet needs, and what happens in sessions and in the therapy relationship. A schema that scores high and also explains the presenting problems belongs in the conceptualization; a high score that matches nothing else in the client's life calls for a conversation before it goes in. Going through the results with the client turns the scores into shared language, and repeating a measure later in treatment shows whether the modes the therapy targets are changing.
The Schema Therapy Institute's bundle also holds the Young Parenting Inventory, the Young Compensation Inventory and the Young-Rygh Avoidance Inventory, under the same license terms; Jeffrey Young and Jayne Rygh share the copyright of the last. Certification as a schema therapist is a separate matter, handled by the International Society of Schema Therapy.
Keep reading
Schema Therapy Case Conceptualization Form, where the questionnaire results go
Schema Modes List and Mode Map Worksheet, the modes the SMI measures, in plain language
Free Schema Therapy Toolkit, all eight templates with completed examples
Deliberate Practice in Schema Therapy, the free webinar with Wendy T. Behary and Joan M. Farrell
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Young Schema Questionnaire free?
No. The Schema Therapy Institute sells the YSQ, together with its other inventories, as an eBook or PDF licensed for one year for the buyer's own professional use. The Institute considers copying its inventories without buying them a violation of copyright.
Can I post YSQ or SMI items online or in a handout?
Not without the Schema Therapy Institute's written permission. Its license forbids placing the contents of the inventories on the internet, reproducing them in publications or other media, translating them, and using a shortened version or a subset of items.
How many modes does the Schema Mode Inventory measure?
The 118-item short form validated by Lobbestael and colleagues in 2010 measures fourteen modes: six child modes, five coping modes, two parent modes and the Healthy Adult. A research version, the SMI-2, was extended to eighteen modes.
Is there a free schema questionnaire?
The Maladaptive Schema Scale is an open-source option. Its 108 items cover 27 schemas, the full scale is published with its open-access validation article in Assessment, and its developers describe it as free for clinical and research use.
References
Bamelis, L. L. M., Renner, F., Heidkamp, D., & Arntz, A. (2011). Extended schema mode conceptualizations for specific personality disorders: An empirical study. Journal of Personality Disorders, 25(1), 41–58. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.2011.25.1.41
Buchanan, B., Bartholomew, E., Smyth, C., & Hegarty, D. (2025). The Maladaptive Schema Scale (MSS): Development and validation of a comprehensive questionnaire for beliefs related to psychopathology. Assessment. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10731911251390083
Lee, S. J., Choi, Y. H., Rim, H. D., Won, S. H., & Lee, D.-W. (2015). Reliability and validity of the Korean Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form-3 in medical students. Psychiatry Investigation, 12(3), 295–304. https://doi.org/10.4306/pi.2015.12.3.295
Lobbestael, J., van Vreeswijk, M., Spinhoven, P., Schouten, E., & Arntz, A. (2010). Reliability and validity of the short Schema Mode Inventory (SMI). Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 38(4), 437–458. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465810000226
NovoPsych. (n.d.). Maladaptive Schema Scale (MSS). Retrieved November 9, 2026, from https://novopsych.com/assessments/formulation/maladaptive-schema-scale-mss/
Saggino, A., Balsamo, M., Carlucci, L., Cavalletti, V., Sergi, M. R., da Fermo, G., Dèttore, D., Marsigli, N., Petruccelli, I., Pizzo, S., & Tommasi, M. (2018). Psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Young Schema Questionnaire L-3: Preliminary results. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 312. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00312
Schema Therapy Institute. (n.d.-a). Licensing agreements. Retrieved November 9, 2026, from https://www.schematherapy.org/ebook-license-agreements
Schema Therapy Institute. (n.d.-b). Schema inventories order page. Retrieved November 9, 2026, from https://www.schematherapy.org/
Young, J. E., Arntz, A., Atkinson, T., Lobbestael, J., Weishaar, M. E., van Vreeswijk, M. F., & Klokman, J. (2007). The Schema Mode Inventory. Schema Therapy Institute.
