What does it mean that schema dependencies?

Some schemas depend on others — map these dependencies to understand cascading effects.

Example: Your schema "I can handle any challenge" depends on a deeper schema: "effort reliably produces results." When you encounter a situation where sustained effort fails — a layoff, a chronic illness, a market collapse — the deeper schema cracks, and the surface schema collapses with it. You did not lose confidence in one belief. You lost confidence in the foundation that held a dozen beliefs in place.

Try this: Pick one schema you hold strongly — a belief about your career, your relationships, or your capabilities. Ask: what must be true for this schema to hold? Write down three underlying beliefs it depends on. Then pick one of those and repeat: what must be true for that belief to hold? You have just mapped two levels of your dependency graph. Look at the deepest node. If that belief were shaken, how many of the beliefs above it would wobble?