Childhood Maltreatment and Early Maladaptive Schemas: the Role of Self-Forgiveness

Previous findings suggest that childhood maltreatment leads to the development of early maladaptive schemas (EMS) which, in turn, can predispose individuals to future psychopathology. The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating roles of the quality of the early parent-child relationship and dispositional forgiveness, as potential protective factors, in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and maladaptive schemas. A total of 173 participants completed measures of the problematic relationship with their father and their mother, forgiveness, childhood maltreatment, and maladaptive schemas. Results revealed that participants with multi-type maltreatment had significantly higher maladaptive schema scores than those with a single type. In addition, the problematic relationship with the father mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and maladaptive schemas. Finally, self-forgiveness emerged as a significant predictor of lower early maladaptive schemas over and above all the other key variables. These results suggest that early interventions can benefit from including strategies focusing on promoting healthy parent-child relationships, as well as forgiveness of the self in children to cultivate their well-being. Furthermore, interventions in adulthood can target perceptions of parent-child relationships and self-forgiveness in the present moment.