Young Schema Questionnaire (Short Form)
Assesses 18 early maladaptive schemas.
In one minute
How it works in 3 steps
- You respond: You mark beliefs and patterns concerning yourself.
- A profile emerges: It becomes clear which schemas stand out.
- It is interpreted: The result is considered together with your life story.
Who it informs
When professional support helps
What does the YSQ-SF3 measure?
According to Schema Therapy, schemas are deep emotional and cognitive patterns that form early in life and can recur throughout it. This scale lays out, as a profile, which schemas are stronger in you.
What is meaningful is not so much the total score as which schemas stand out. This profile can be the starting point of work aimed at understanding the roots of relational and emotional difficulties.
How is it scored?
Items are rated on a scale and distributed across 18 schema areas. Interpretation rests on the schema profile rather than on a single total.
- Items
- 90
- Score range
- 0–540
- Administration
- Self / observer report
What do the score bands mean?
The ranges below are a general frame. No band makes a diagnosis on its own; a result only becomes meaningful when a clinical psychologist interprets it alongside your life story.
| Score | General interpretation |
|---|---|
| 0–180 | Low schema activation |
| 181–360 | Moderate schema activation |
| 361–540 | High schema activation |
Limitation: It relies on self-report; where an avoidant coping style is dominant, some schema scores may come out lower than they are. It is not a diagnostic tool.
Psychometrics and source
The internal consistency of the subscales is generally at an acceptable-to-high level across studies; validity studies of the Turkish form are available.
Original source: Young, J.E. (2003). Schema Therapy.
How is this scale used at Mete Psikoloji?
At Mete Psikoloji, within a Schema Therapy framework, this scale is used to understand the patterns that stand out and to set the focus of the work, with results kept in your client portal for online and in-person work alike.
Related reading
Did your result give you pause?
A scale is only a starting point. By planning an assessment session with our clinical psychologists, you can consider your result alongside the context of your life.