1st Edition

Metacognition and Severe Adult Mental Disorders From Research to Treatment

Edited By Giancarlo Dimaggio, Paul H. Lysaker Copyright 2010
    344 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    344 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Many adults who experience severe mental illness also suffer from deficits in metacognition - put simply, thinking about one’s own thought processes - limiting their abilities to recognize, express and manage naturally occurring painful emotions and routine social problems as well as to fathom the intentions of others.

    This book presents an overview of the field, showing how current research can inform clinical practice. An international range of expert contributors provide chapters which look at the role of metacognitive deficit in personality disorders, schizophrenia, and mood disorders, and the implications for future psychotherapeutic treatment.

    Divided into three parts, areas covered include:

    • how metacognitive deficits may arise and the different forms they might take
    • the psychopathology of metacognition in different forms of mental illness
    • whether specific deficits in metacognition might help us understand the difficulties seen in differing forms of severe mental illness.

    Offering varying perspectives and including a wealth of clinical material, this book will be of great interest to all mental health professionals, researchers and practitioners.

    Dimaggio, Lysaker, The Metacognitive System: Theory, Evidence and Implications for Treatment. Part I: Theory: The Neural and Social Basis For Metacognition and its Disorders. Saxe, Offen, Seeing Ourselves: What Vision Can Teach Us About Metacognition. Carpendale, Lewis, Social Understanding Through Social Interaction. Gumley, The Developmental Roots of Compromised Mentalization in Complex Mental Health Disturbances of Adulthood: An Attachment. Part II: Metacognitive Disorders in Different Clinical Populations, its Relation with Symptoms, Interpersonal Functioning and Adaptation. Lysaker, Metacognition in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: Methods of Assessing Metacognition within Narrative and Links with Neurocognition. Schaub, Abdel-Hamid, Brüne, Schizophrenia and Social Functioning: The Role of Impaired Metacognition. Morgan, David, Awareness is Not the Same as Acceptance: Exploring the Thinking Behind Insight and Compliance. Bell, Langdon, Siegert, Ellis, The Assessment of Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia. Stanghellini, Commonsense, Disembodiment, and Delusions in Schizophrenia. Kanba, Yamada, Inoue, Deficit of Theory of Mind in Depression and its Correlation with Poor Clinical Outcomes. Vanheule, Inslegers, Meganck, Ooms, Desmet, Interpersonal Problems in Alexithymia: A Review. Colle, D’Angerio, Popolo, Dimaggio, Different Profiles of Metacognitive Dysfunctions in Personality Disorders. Liotti, Prunetti, Metacognitive Deficits in Trauma-related Disorders: Contingent on Interpersonal Motivational Contexts? Part III: Treatment of Metacognitive Disturbances in Severe Adult Disorders. Lysaker, Buck, Metacognitive Capacity as a Focus of Individual Psychotherapy in Schizophrenia. Hasson-Ohayon, Kravetz, Roe, Empathic and Theory of Mind Processes: The Dialogical Core of a Metacognitive Approach to Psychiatric Rehabilitation. Dimaggio, Salvatore, Nicolò, Fiore, Procacci, Enhancing Mental State Understanding in Over-constricted Personality Disorder Using Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy. Semerari, The Impact of Metacognitive Dysfunctions in Personality Disorders on the Therapeutic Relationship and Intervention Technique. Osatuke, Stiles, Change in PTSD: An Assimilation Model Account. Conclusions. Lysaker, Dimaggio, Metacogntion and Mental Illness: Commentary.

    Biography

    Giancarlo Dimaggio is a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist at the Third Center of Cognitive Psychotherapy in Rome. He is currently involved in clinical work and research on pathology and treatment of personality disorders.

    Paul H. Lysaker is a clinical psychologist at the Roudebush Virginia Medical Center in Indianapolis Indiana and an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry Indianapolis School of Medicine. His current research interests include the development of metacognitive capacity through individual psychotherapy for persons with schizophrenia.

    "Traditional cognitive domains, such as language, memory or perception, do not properly capture the problems experienced by people with severe mental disorders like schizophrenia. Their problems lie rather with insight and with the ability to monitor the mental and emotional states of themselves and others. In this book the editors have recognised that these disparate problems can be brought together under the heading of Metacognition. As the contents of the book so admirably show, this very important insight provides a framework for guiding both theory and practice in the study of severe mental disorders."   - Chris Frith, UCL, UK & University of Aarhus, Denmark

    "Dimaggio and Lysaker have assembled a stellar cast of contributors who apply the latest developments in theory and research on metacognition to our understanding of the both the development and treatment of severe mental disorders. Although all of the contributions are subsumed under the general topic of metacognition, the authors are in fact addressing a number of vitally important and timely areas. These include: theory of mind, reflective functioning, mentalization, attachment, affect regulation, and the therapeutic relationship. The end result is a lively, engaging and thought provoking collection of essays that will be of tremendous interest to theorists, researchers and psychotherapists of all orientations." - Jeremy D. Safran, Professor and Director of Clinical Psychology, New School for Social Research, President, International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, New York, USA