Among the basic components of the personality organization are sequences of different kinds of schemas that operate analogously to an assembly line. For purposes of simplification, these structures may be viewed as operating in a logical linear progression. For example, exposure to a dangerous stimulus activates the relevant “danger schema,” which begins to process the information. In sequence, then, the affective, motivational, action, and control schemas are activated. The person interprets the situation as dangerous (cognitive schema), feels anxiety (affective schema), wants to get away (motivational schema), and becomes mobilized to run away (action or instrumental schema). If the person judges that running away is counterproductive, he or she may inhibit this impulse (control schema).

In Axis I disorders, a specific mode becomes hypervalent and leads, for example, to preoccupation with loss, danger, or combat. In the case of depression, a chain reaction is set up: cognitive → affective → motivational → motor. In personally meaningful situations, the interpretation and the affect feed into the “effector loop” or action system. For instance, after her interpreting a rejection, a sad expression would sweep across Sue’s face. This process, which occurred automatically, might have served phylogenetically as a form of communication—as a distress signal, for example. Concomitantly, “action schemas” were triggered: Her own particular strategy for dealing with rejection was activated, and she experienced an impulse to go into the next room and ask Tom to reassure her. She was mobilized to act according to her stereotyped strategy. At this point, she might or might not yield to her impulse to run to Tom.