Objective: This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of maladaptive schemas between childhood emotional maltreatment and psychological distress among college students.
Methods: This was a descriptive-correlative and after the fact study. A total of 315 students were selected with multistage cluster sampling from students of Tehran universities. The participants completed the lifetime of experiences questionnaire (LEQ), Young’s schema questionnaire short form with 90-item (YSQ-SF-3), and the trauma symptom checklist-40 (TSC-40). Data were analyzed by path analysis using SPSS 16.
Results: The results indicated that perception of childhood emotional maltreatment was associated with later psychological distress and mediated through schema of defectiveness/ shame, vulnerability to harm, self-sacrifice, and entitlement.
Conclusion: In this study, our findings suggested that childhood emotional maltreatment is contributed to later psychological distress by developing cognitive vulnerability of children through maladaptive schemas. These schemas are rigid and extreme cognitive structures that negatively filter and bias cognitive and emotional information.