Group schema therapy for personality disorders: A pilot study for implementation in acute psychiatric in-patient settings.
Group schema therapy (GST) has been proposed as a novel long-term treatment programme for borderline and cluster C personality disorders. We implemented a short-term GST programme (12-15 sessions, based on the manual by Farrell and Shaw (2012), including both cognitive / behavioural and experiential interventions for in-patients (n=9) with either borderline or cluster C personality disorders (and axis I co-morbidities) treated in a (sub)acute psychiatric in-patient setting. We evaluated pre- and post-treatment self-report of maladaptive and adaptive schema modes (using the SMI) and early maladaptive schemas (YSQ-3), as well as overall symptom severity (brief symptom check list, BSCL-53-S), patient satisfaction (ZUF-8) and group climate and coherence (GCQ-S). We found significant reduction of symptoms, and trend-level improvement for schema mode activation, but not maladaptive schemas. Effect sizes of Cohen's d=0.857 for symptoms and d=0.693 for maladaptive schema mode reduction were, however, lower than previous GST trials in in-patient settings with a longer treatment phase and outpatient GST trials using the Farrell and Shaw-model, indicating importance of duration in ST treatment. Our findings in this uncontrolled study provide first evidence that GST (based on the Farrell and Shaw model) can be implemented and adapted for use in short-term in-patient (sub)acute settings.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Jena University Hospital, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Philosophenweg 3, 07743 Jena, Germany. Electronic address: nenadic@staff.uni-marburg.de.
Igor
I
Nenadić
Department of Differential Psychology and Psychological Assessment, Institute of Psychology, Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, 60323 Frankfurt, Germany.
Sina
S
Lamberth
Department of Differential Psychology and Psychological Assessment, Institute of Psychology, Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, 60323 Frankfurt, Germany; Institute for Psychotherapy Mainz (IPSTI-MZ), 55116 Mainz, Germany.
Neele
N
Reiss
D000328:Adult; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011615:Psychotherapy, Group / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult
Borderline personality disorder; Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT); Personality disorder; Schema therapy