Schema Therapy Flashcards
Underlying Theory
Schema Therapy was developed by Dr. Jeffrey E. Young for use in treatment of personality disorders and chronic DSM Axis I disorders, such as when patients fail to respond or relapse after having been through other therapies (for example, traditional cognitive behavioral therapy). Schema Therapy is an integrative psychotherapy combining theory and techniques from previously existing therapies, including cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalytic object relations theory, attachment theory, and Gestalt therapy.
Evidence Base
Schema Therapy vs transference focused psychotherapy outcomes (Archives of General Psychiatry 2006)
Dutch investigators, including Dr. Josephine Giesen-Bloo and Dr. Arnoud Arntz (the project leader), compared Schema Therapy (also known as schema focused therapy or SFT) withtransference focused psychotherapy (TFP) in the treatment of borderline personality disorder. 86 patients were recruited from four mental health institutes in the Netherlands. Patients in the study received two sessions per week of SFT or TFP for three years. After three years, full recovery was achieved in 45% of the patients in the SFT condition, and in 24% of those receiving TFP. One year later, the percentage fully recovered increased to 52% in the SFT condition and 29% in the TFP condition, with 70% of the patients in the SFT group achieving “clinically significant and relevant improvement”. Moreover, the dropout rate was only 27% for SFT, compared with 50% for TFP.
Patients began to feel and function significantly better after the first year, with improvement occurring more rapidly in the SFT group. There was continuing improvement in subsequent years. Thus investigators concluded that both treatments had positive effects, with Schema Therapy clearly more successful.
Less intensive outpatient, individual schema therapy (Behaviour Research and Therapy 2009)
