Integrated Metacognitive Therapy in First Episode Psychosis

Insight, or lack of illness awareness, is a prominent and pressing clinical concern in the treatment and recovery of patients with psychotic disorders. Impaired insight results in poor treatment engagement and adherence, more frequent hospitalizations, greater positive and negative symptoms, and poor psychosocial functioning. Addressing these complications early in the disease process may lead to altered illness course with better outcomes. To date, only a small number of nonpharmacological interventions have been developed, none of which adequately address poor insight during the first few years of psychotic illness. Further, presently available therapeutic interventions do not attend to difficulties associated with improved insight, such as depression. The purpose of this investigation is to implement a novel intervention designed to improve insight, metacognition, neurocognition, symptoms, and ultimately overall functioning in persons with early psychosis. The novel intervention will integrate a number of previously established therapeutic approaches, such as metacognitive, narrative, cognitive behavioral and motivational interviewing, and hence be labeled Integrated Metacognitive Therapy (IMT). In order to measure the efficacy of IMT, all subjects will undergo a battery of assessments in each of these domains prior to and following either a novel intervention (N = 10) or treatment as usual (N = 10) for a period of approximately six months. Throughout the study, each IMT session (N = 10, 24 sessions each) will be audio recorded, transcribed, and de-identified to allow for careful ongoing qualitative analyses of potential active and inert ingredients of the approach and ultimately the development of an IMT manual which can then be tested in a larger, more rigorous randomized control trial. This investigation will play an important role in advancing current knowledge about treating insight in early psychosis. Further, it will serve to expand upon the intervention t