Mindfulness, Psychological Flexibility and Emotional Schemas

There is significant growing interest in the areas of mindfulness, acceptance, experiential avoidance, psychological flexibility, and emotional schemas. While, both emotional schemas and mindfulness have been related to psychopathology, this study is one of the first to empirically address the relationship between these constructs. Specifically, this study examined the relationships between ciispositional mindfulness as measured by the Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003), psychological flexibility as measured by the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire II (AAQ-11; Bond et al., 2011) and the fourteen dimensions of emotional schemas, as measured by the Leahy Emotional Schema Scale (LESS; Leahy, 2002). There were 107 adult cognitive-behavioral outpatient participants in the study who completed these self-report questionnaires. Individuals with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness also had higher levels of psychological flexibility and were more likely to endorse more adaptive dimensions of emotional schemas. Those individuals who appeared less psychologically flexible or displayed lower levels of dispositional mindfulness were more likely to report less adaptive and more rigid responses to emotional experience.