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Studies in multiple cultures have identified and validated the latest version of the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-S3), which measures the 18 EMSs represented in the latest version of the theoretical model of functioning that underpins ST (e.g., Bach et al., 2017). These EMSs, through second order factor analyses, have been found to

cluster into four broad categories, namely Disconnection and Rejection, Impaired

Autonomy and Performance, Impaired Limits, and Exaggerated Expectations (Hoffart

et al., 2005). These are viewed as four categories of unmet core emotional needs. These categories, and the patterns of parenting believed to be theoretically linked to

them, are shown in Appendix B.

EASs, in contrast to EMSs, are hypothesised to develop when the core emotional needs of a child are met early in life by primary caregivers. As an outgrowth of this effort to introduce positive constructs, the theoretical specification has been published

(Lockwood & Perris, 2012), and the Young Positive Schema Questionnaire (YPSQ), which measures EASs, has just been validated (Louis et al., 2017; in press). These EASs have also been hypothesised to fall under four broad positive categories,

mirroring the four higher order categories for EMSs (e.g. Hoffart et al., 2005; see Table 1.1), and each is believed to define a category of core emotional need. These categories

are termed Connection and Acceptance, Healthy Autonomy and Performance,

Reasonable Limits, and Realistic Expectations (see Appendix B; Lockwood & Perris,

2012; Young et al., 2003).

The link between needs, parenting, and the development of EMSs and EASs can be illustrated through the example of the need for warmth, affection, guidance, and the mutual sharing of personal experience. If a child has a parent who is warm, affectionate

and attuned, this is believed to lead to the development of the EAS known as Emotional Fulfillment; a need making up the Connection and Acceptance category. If the child’s parent is cold, distant, and lacks empathy, this is seen as leading to the development of the EMS known as Emotional Deprivation; a pattern falling within the Disconnection and Rejection category. The latter child is likely to be more prone to anxiety,

depression, and feelings of loneliness or emptiness. The child is likely to cope with this EMS by surrendering, avoiding, or overcompensating, or some combination of these three. For example, s/he might surrender to this EMS by feeling and acting as if this is what s/he deserves. Avoidance of this EMS could take the form of distancing from the associated painful feelings by numbing or distraction or staying away from the

depriving parent by, for example, spending time in his/her room or out with friends. Finally, overcompensating for this EMS could take the form of pushing to be noticed by the parent or denying any need for emotional nurturance. Children (and later adults) often alternate between surrender, avoidance, and overcompensation depending on internal processes and the environmental demands and potential for action. Each of these three coping styles, while often helping support the individual psychologically in the short run, ultimately serves to perpetuate the EMS into adulthood. The EMSs and their associated copying styles become pathological when they become fixed ways of viewing and acting within the world that are not amenable to later environmental changes or disconfirming evidence of the underlying beliefs. An interaction between the degree to which these core emotional needs are not met, a child’s temperament, cultural influences, environment, and the quality of the parents’ (or primary

caregivers’) relationships with each other are believed to determine the severity of the EMSs (Louis & Louis, 2015; Young et al., 2003). Early parenting patterns that either meet or do not meet these core emotional needs adequately are believed to contribute significantly to the development of a broad range of EASs and EMSs, respectively (Lockwood and Perris, 2012).

Although the negative parenting patterns, as measured by the YPI, are believed to contribute to the development of EMSs and presumably also impede the development of EASs, there is currently no measure for the positive parenting patterns that are believed (from the vantage point of ST) to help prevent the development of the EMSs and facilitate the development of EASs. In the 1960s, Baumrind (1966) developed a parenting model consisting of one positive parenting construct known as Authoritative

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and two negative ones known as Authoritarian and Permissive. Maccoby and Martin (1983) later added a fourth negative construct called Neglectful. All four parenting constructs were based on the two dimensions of warmth and control. This model has been used extensively until today, evidenced from an influential meta-analysis conducted by Pinquart (2017) that used 1,435 studies on associations of parenting dimensions and styles with externalizing symptoms in children and adolescents. However, the restricted range of only four parenting styles was cited as a limitation in

this study as well as in other crucial studies such as by Gardner et al. (2009), Hudson

and Rapee (2002), and by Pinquart and Kauser (2018). Over the years Baumrind’s model also drew criticisms from Grolnick (2003) and Greenspan (2006), who disagreed with her view that high control was part of her Authoritative parenting construct on the grounds of Attribution theory (Heider, 1958), which suggested that high control from parents would prevent children from experiencing their behaviour as being a result of their own internal desires. It seems that early observations may have been limited by the cultural paradigms within which these investigators operated and this, as a consequence, put constraints on the range of variables included in the Authoritative parenting construct. However, the Authoritative parenting construct has also evolved since its inception, and a number of other positive dimensions, such as autonomy, have since been included (Robinson et al., 1995).