What once kept you safe keeps repeating today. Find out what it is.
Everyone carries a few old ghosts: beliefs from early on, like “In the end, everyone leaves” or “Good isn’t good enough.” Back then, they protected you. Today, they create patterns that repeat in your relationships, at work and in the way you treat yourself. This life patterns test shows which ghosts are awake in you and how you handle them — because it takes both to make the pattern you recognize in everyday life.
- The map is free: 90 statements, about 12 minutes — then you’ll see which of the 18 ghosts are awake in you, with their names and voices
- The deep dive only asks about your most prominent ghosts and works out whether you go along with them, steer clear of them or push back
- Your result in everyday scenes: what each pattern protected you from, what it costs you today and what it gives you — whether you change anything is up to you
- 18
- old ghosts in five chapters
- 3
- ways of dealing with a ghost
- 54
- patterns that can grow out of them
- ~12 min
- for the map — free
What old ghosts are
Not a haunting — just beliefs that formed early and still have a say today.
The same spot, again and again
A different job, a different relationship, a different year — and there you are again, in exactly the same place. You say yes when you mean no. You leave before things get serious. You work until there’s nothing left. That’s neither chance nor a character flaw; it’s a pattern with a history.
Protection then, habit now
An old ghost is a belief you learned early because it was true back then — or felt true. “What I need, I won’t get” may have spared you from asking again and again for nothing. Today the ghost says the same thing — even around people who’d gladly give.
Not a red flag — almost everyone has some
Old ghosts aren’t a diagnosis or a sign that something’s wrong with you. Having a few awake ones is perfectly normal, and many people live with them just fine. It gets interesting where a ghost costs you something today that you no longer want to pay.
The decision stays with you
This test doesn’t hand out homework. It names your patterns, tells you what they were good for and shows what they cost you now. Some ghosts are worth keeping — they have good instincts. Whether you change anything — and what — is your choice.
The 18 old ghosts
Every ghost has a voice — a sentence that arrives faster than any thought. The 18 ghosts come from five areas of life where, early on, you work out what to expect from yourself, from other people and from the world. The map shows which ones are awake in you and which are asleep.
Closeness & Belonging
Whether people stay, whether you can trust them and whether you belong.
Being Left
“In the end, everyone leaves.”
Every closeness has an expiry date; the ones who stay just leave later.
Mistrust
“Let someone close, and they’ll use it.”
Anyone who gets close has a reason, and it’s rarely a good one for you.
Going Without
“What I need, I won’t get.”
Warmth, understanding and support exist — there’s just never quite enough for you.
Shame
“If you really knew me, you wouldn’t want me.”
Somewhere deep down something is wrong with you, and anyone who looks closely will find it.
Not Belonging
“I don’t really fit in anywhere.”
Everyone else belongs together, and you stand slightly apart.
Standing on Your Own
Whether you trust yourself to handle life on your own — and whether the world feels safe enough for it.
Needing a Hand
“I can’t manage this on my own.”
Decisions and everyday life are too much to carry without someone else’s hand.
Thin Ice
“Disaster is just around the corner.”
Misfortune lies in wait — illness, accident, loss — and it comes without warning.
Entwined
“Without you, I don’t know who I am.”
You and one particular person are so closely bound that there’s little room left for a self of your own.
Falling Behind
“Everyone else can do this. I can’t.”
When it comes to ability, the others are ahead, and you never quite close the gap.
Limits
How you deal with rules, restraint and the long haul.
My Own Rules
“The usual rules don’t apply to me.”
Other people’s limits are negotiable; your own wants are not.
Out of Breath
“I won’t be able to keep this up.”
When things get slow, dull or uncomfortable, your strength won’t last to the finish.
Others First
How much room your own wishes get next to everyone else’s.
Second Fiddle
“What I want doesn’t count.”
Your wishes weigh less than other people’s, and showing them only brings trouble.
Always There
“Everyone else first, then me.”
Other people’s needs are more urgent than yours, and meeting them is your job.
Applause
“I am what you see in me.”
Your worth is whatever others write on your report card: praise, status, glances.
Standards & Brakes
How strict you are with yourself, how much you show and what you expect from life.
Expecting the Worst
“It’s going to go wrong.”
The bad is likelier than the good, and anyone who counts on otherwise is in for a letdown.
Tight Lid
“Feelings stay inside.”
Showing what you feel leaves you exposed or foolish — better to keep the lid on.
Never Enough
“Good isn’t good enough.”
There’s always one more level above what you’ve achieved, and only up there are you allowed to rest.
The Verdict
“Mistakes have to be punished.”
Whoever makes a mistake doesn’t deserve leniency — not you, and not anyone else.
One ghost, three faces
The same ghost can look completely different in two people — what matters is what you do with its voice. Three examples, all featuring the ghost Being Left, which says: “In the end, everyone leaves.”
Going Along
You believe the ghost and arrange your life so that it stays right.
Holding On
No reply since lunchtime. You send another message, then a third, and at dinner your phone sits face up next to your plate.
Steering Clear
You stay out of the situations in which the ghost would get loud.
Alone by Design
After three lovely evenings, you cancel the fourth date. Not because anything went wrong — but because it was starting to matter to you.
Pushing Back
You do the opposite — so firmly that nobody notices the ghost, least of all you.
Leaving First
Tuesday, 10:40 pm, and you’ve been left on read for four hours. At 10:41 you type: “Let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to be.” You end it before they can.
For each of your awake ghosts, the test works out separately which of the three takes over — through short everyday scenarios, not a self-rating.
What your result looks like
No need to go in blind: look at a real sample result first — three awake ghosts, three patterns, told in scenes from a perfectly ordinary life. Your own result comes in exactly this form.
- Every pattern with its own name and a film still: the time, the place, the moment it happens
- What the pattern once protected you from — and what it costs you today, in relationships, at work or with yourself
- How your two loudest ghosts interact, which strengths sit inside your patterns — and which ones lie in the ghosts that are asleep in you
- For every pattern, a small first step you can try — or not
Opens a real, anonymized sample profile.
What you get
No overall score, no jargon — just your patterns, in scenes you’ll recognize.
Your map — free
All 18 ghosts in five chapters at a glance. The awake ones come first, with their names, voices and a few lines on how they show up in you. If they’re all asleep, that’s your result — also free.
Your patterns, not labels
For each awake ghost, the pattern that grows out of the way you deal with it — with a name like “Leaving First” or “Clockwork” and a scene from your everyday life. No score, no traffic light — just: this is how it looks for you.
What it was for, what it costs, what it gives
Every pattern gets its story: what protection it once gave you, what it costs you today — wherever you feel it most — and what strength lies inside it.
Your decision
There’s no assignment at the end. You read how your ghosts interact — what gets to stay is your call. If you want, a small first step is ready for every pattern — as an offer, not a task.
How it works
The map — free
90 statements in five rounds, about 12 minutes, on a 7-point scale: how true is this for you? Then you’ll see which ghosts are awake in you. If they’re all asleep, the test ends here — with your result.
The deep dive — with Premium
Only for your three to five most prominent ghosts: statements and short everyday scenarios that show how you deal with each one and where it costs you most today. About 8 minutes — then your full result is ready.
The origins — if you want
An optional extra part with Premium, about 2 minutes: two gentle statements per ghost about where it might come from. You can skip it anytime — your result is complete without it.
The model behind it: schema therapy
The old ghosts are modeled on a scientific approach: schema therapy, developed by US psychologist Jeffrey Young. It describes 18 early maladaptive schemas — deep-rooted beliefs about yourself, other people and the world that form when core childhood needs such as secure attachment, autonomy, room for your own needs and feelings, spontaneity or realistic limits go unmet. Young groups them into five domains (Young, Klosko & Weishaar 2003) — our five chapters. In their self-help classic “Reinventing Your Life,” Young and Klosko call eleven of them “lifetraps.” If you’ve been searching for a schema therapy test, a lifetrap quiz or an early maladaptive schemas test, these are most likely the patterns you’re looking for.
The second pillar is one this test takes especially seriously: according to Young, people deal with a schema in three ways — they surrender to it, avoid the situations that trigger it, or overcompensate by doing the opposite. We call these coping styles going along, steering clear and pushing back. The same person can steer clear with one schema and push back with another, which is why we assess the way you deal with each of your ghosts separately, using everyday scenarios rather than self-ratings.
The best-known measure in schema therapy is the Young Schema Questionnaire; its short form, the YSQ-S3 (Young 2005), has 90 statements, five per schema. Its German version proved reliable in a sample of 1,150 people from the general population and confirmed the structure of the 18 schemas (Kriston et al. 2013). The map follows the same logic: 18 ghosts, five statements each. The questionnaire itself is copyrighted — every statement and scenario in this test is written from scratch, grounded in everyday life and free of jargon. More recent analyses group the 18 schemas into four domains instead of five (Bach, Lockwood & Young 2018); we keep five chapters because they separate the areas of life more finely.
Early schemas aren’t a special case; they’re widely spread across the general population — so an awake ghost isn’t a clinical finding. What matters is whether and where it costs you something today, which is why the deep dive explicitly asks how much it weighs on you. We deliberately don’t ask about bad things that happened to you as a child, and your result does without technical terms: it talks about ghosts, voices and patterns, not diagnoses.
Old Ghosts is a tool for self-reflection, not a diagnostic instrument. The test describes patterns that almost everyone knows in some form, and it replaces neither a diagnosis nor therapy. If a pattern keeps weighing on you, talking to your doctor or a psychotherapist is a good next step. In an acute crisis, reach out to a mental-health professional or a local crisis line right away.
Frequently asked questions
No. Old Ghosts is a tool for self-reflection: the test describes patterns and the story behind them — it doesn’t diagnose anything and doesn’t replace therapy. The ideas behind it come from schema therapy, an evidence-based form of psychotherapy that professionals carry out over many sessions. For some people, knowing their patterns by name is already enough. If a pattern weighs heavily on you, a psychotherapist is the right person to work on it with — and you can bring your result along.
No. The map and the deep dive only ask about today: what you expect, how you react and where it costs you something. The origins part is separate and optional: two gentle statements per ghost — no questions about bad experiences and no judgment of the people from your childhood. You can skip it or stop at any point — your result is complete either way.
Because they once worked. An old ghost is a conclusion drawn early on, and the way you dealt with it was often the best strategy you had back then. Strategies like that keep running long after your life has changed: if you go along, you somehow keep ending up in situations that prove the ghost right. If you steer clear, you never get to find out that things could turn out differently. And if you push back, you look strong on the outside while the ghost keeps talking underneath. That’s why the pattern feels familiar even when it no longer serves you. Knowing it by name can already change something: once you see it coming, you have a choice.
Ages 16 and up. The statements need no prior knowledge; wherever work comes up, school, vocational training or college count too. At a young age, many beliefs are still in flux — your result is a snapshot, not a verdict on your life.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. Old ghosts are inner beliefs — what someone expects, fears or tells themselves — and those can’t be judged from the outside, however well you know the person. A result taken on someone’s behalf would be neither fair nor meaningful. What can help: asking rather than interpreting, and showing them the test instead of taking it for them. If you feel someone is in immediate danger, a test result isn’t the right route: reach out to a mental-health professional or a local crisis line right away — that goes for family and friends, too.
The map is free and, after 90 statements (about 12 minutes), shows you which ghosts are awake in you. If they’re all asleep, that’s already your complete result. The deep dive with your patterns, scenes and strengths is part of Premium, and so is the optional origins part: 7-day access for $1.95 (incl. VAT), then $39.95 every 4 weeks. Cancel anytime.
Twelve minutes for your map.
Find out which old ghosts are awake in you — with their names and voices, for free. What you do with them afterwards is up to you.
Free map · No account · ~12 minutes