Embracing Psychosis: A Cognitive Insight Intervention Improves Personal Narratives and Meaning-Making in Patients With Schizophrenia

Moritz, Steffen; Mahlke, Candelaria I; Westermann, Stefan; Ruppelt, Friederike; Lysaker, Paul H; Bock, Thomas; Andreou, Christina (2018). Embracing Psychosis: A Cognitive Insight Intervention Improves Personal Narratives and Meaning-Making in Patients With Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia bulletin, 44(2), pp. 307-316. Oxford University Press 10.1093/schbul/sbx072

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Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder with unknown and presumably heterogeneous etiology. While the disorder can have various outcomes, research is predominantly "deficit-oriented" emphasizing the hardship that the disorder inflicts on sufferers as well as their families and society. Beyond symptom reduction, imparting patients with hope and meaning in life is increasingly considered an important treatment target, which may raise self-esteem, and reduce self-stigma and suicidal ideation. The present study compared a psychotherapeutic treatment aimed at improving cognitive insight, individualized metacognitive intervention (MCT+), with an active control in order to elucidate if personal meaning-making and hope can be improved in patients with psychosis across time. A total of 92 patients were randomized to either individualized metacognitive therapy (MCT+) or CogPack (neuropsychological training) and followed up for up to 6 months. The "Subjective Sense in Psychosis Questionnaire" (SUSE) was administered which covers different salutogenetic vs pathogenetic views of the disorder, valence of symptom experiences and the consequences of psychosis. Patients in the MCT+ group showed a significant positive shift in attitudes towards the consequences of their illness over time relative to patients in the active control condition. There was some evidence that MCT+ also enhanced meaning-making. The perceived negative consequences of psychosis were highly correlated with depression and low self-esteem, as well as suicidality. The study shows that a cognitive insight training can improve meaning-making in patients and help them come to terms with their diagnosis.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology

UniBE Contributor:

Westermann, Stefan

Subjects:

100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

0586-7614

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

Language:

English

Submitter:

Salome Irina Rahel Bötschi

Date Deposited:

30 Apr 2018 09:31

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:11

Publisher DOI:

10.1093/schbul/sbx072

PubMed ID:

29106693

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.111869

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/111869

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