How does the therapist know when it is time to shift the focus of treatment to behavioral pattern-breaking? The answer is when patients have successfully mastered the cognitive and experiential parts of treatment. If patients are able to label their Early Maladaptive Schemas when they are triggered, to understand the origins of their schemas in childhood, and to participate in schema dialogues in which they consistently defeat their schemas utilizing their healthy sides—both cognitively and emotionally—then they are probably ready to begin behavioral pattern-breaking.