Metacognition in psychotic disorders

Being able to think about one’s own thoughts and feelings (metacognition) is often difficult for persons with a psychotic disorder. These difficulties have a negative influence on the (interpersonal) functioning. In the first part of this dissertation, we discuss different definitions of metacognitions which are used and the associated treatments, the link between metacognitive abilities and work experience, and risk of violence. In the second part of this dissertation we discuss our research into the effectiveness of a new psychotherapy aimed at metacognitive capacity in psychosis. First, we report our findings in the treatment of a single patient (case study), then a group of patients with whom we found encouraging results (pilot study), and finally a large study into the effectiveness of 40 sessions of this treatment in 35 patients compared to 35 patients who did not receive any treatment. Our results are modestly encouraging: immediately after treatment we find no differences between the groups; both groups had improved. In the control group, however, this effect disappears after 6 months, while the group which had received therapy continued to improve on metacognitive capacity.

Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/d5094a0e-07e2-4387-87d7-46c1f0b48be8