Social Cognition and Metacognition in Schizophrenia

Deficits in social cognition and metacognition in schizophrenics makes it difficult for them to understand the speech, facial expressions and hence emotion and intention of others, as well as allowing little insight into their own mental state. These deficits are associated with poor social skills, fewer social relationships, and are predictive of poorer performance in a work setting. Social Cognition and Metacognition in Schizophrenia reviews recent research advances focusing on the precise nature of these deficits, when and how they manifest themselves, what their effect is on the course of schizophrenia, and how each can be treated. These deficits may themselves be why schizophrenia is so difficult to resolve; by focusing on the deficits, recovery may be quicker and long lasting. This book discusses such deficits in early onset, first episode, and prolonged schizophrenia; how the deficits relate to each other and to other forms of psychopathology; how the deficits affect social, psychological, and vocational functioning; and how best to treat the deficits in either individual or group settings. Summarizes the types of social cognitive and metacognitive deficits present in schizophrenia Discusses how deficits are related to each other and to other forms of psychopathology Describes how deficits impact function and affect the recovery process Provides treatment approaches for these deficits

Social Cognition in Schizophrenia: From Evidence to Treatment provides a firm grounding in the theory and research of normal social cognition, builds on this base to describe how social cognition appears to be dysfunctional in schizophrenia, and explains how this dysfunction might be ameliorated.

Social Cognition in Psychosis combines current research on phenotypes, neurobiology, and existing evidence on the assessment and treatment of various forms of psychoses. The book presents various treatment options, including assessment approaches, tools and training methods that aid in the rehabilitation of patients with psychotic disorders. Social cognition is a set of psychological processes related to understanding, recognizing, processing and appropriately using social stimuli in one's environment. Individuals with psychotic disorders consistently exhibit impairments in social cognition. As a result, social cognition has been an important target for intervention, with recent efforts trying to enhance early recovery among individuals with psychotic disorders. Provides an overview of social cognition in relation to various forms of psychotic disorders Includes assessment and treatment for social cognition dysfunction in psychoses Discusses the genetics and heritability theory of social cognitive dysfunction in psychosis Defines the neurobiology of social cognitive dysfunctions

Impairments in social functioning are among the hallmark characteristics of schizophrenia. These deficits predict relapse rate and may be independent of better-studied symptoms such as hallucinations. Additionally, studies indicate that social functioning is one of the most important domains for individuals with schizophrenia, many of whom consider social functioning to be a key area of unmet need. Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT) is a group psychotherapy for individuals with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Social cognition refers to the thinking processes that people use to navigate the social world. Deficits in social cognition hinder people with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses from living meaningful, socially connected lives. The SCIT Clinician Guide provides comprehensive instruction for mental health professionals to enhance social cognition and promote rewarding social lives for their clients. SCIT is appropriate for adults suffering from psychotic illness and who have interpersonal difficulties as a result. SCIT is particularly appropriate for individuals with symptoms of suspiciousness and paranoia. The authors summarize the rationale and theoretical underpinnings of SCIT, distinguish it from other treatments for psychosis, provide an overview of the intervention, explain the links between the intervention activities and the underlying theoretical model, and describe SCIT implementation session-by-session. SCIT is a 20- to 24-week group-based treatment that can be delivered by mental health clinicians of all levels in a wide range of community and hospital settings. SCIT uses exercises, games, discussion formats, and interactive social stimuli to target and improve specific areas of social cognitive dysfunction, and includes user-friendly tips and handouts for clients. It also provides web access to a library of videos, images and slide shows that are used to bring the SCIT training sessions to life.

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.

A practical guide on how to assess and treat schizophrenia and related disorders using cognitive rehabilitation.

Metacognition refers to thinking about our own thinking. It has assumed a prominent role in social judgment because our thoughts about our thoughts can magnify, attenuate, or even reverse the impact of primary cognition. Metacognitive thoughts can also produce changes in thought, feeling, and behavior, and thus are critical for a complete understanding of human social behavior. The present volume presents the most important and advanced research areas in social psychology where the role of metacognition has been studied. Specifically, the chapters of this book are organized into four substantive content areas: Attitudes and Decision Making, Self and Identity, Experiential, and Interpersonal. Each section consists in several chapters summarizing much of the work done in recent decades on critical topics, such as attitude strength, persuasion, bias correction, self-regulation, subjective feelings, embodiment, and prejudice, among others. This book also emphasizes interpersonal aspects of metacognition as they play an essential role in close relationships, groups, consumer and clinical interactions. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field, and presents a state-of-the-art view of the many ways metacognition has been examined by social psychologists.

Schizophrenia is being increasingly viewed as a neurological disorder. The Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia addresses the key questions in modern schizophrenia research. How do abnormalities of the brain produce the characteristic signs and symptoms of this most severe and mysterious mental malady? Where are these abnormalities? How do they develop? How can we detect them? What clinical and cognitive effects do they have? This new book is the first of its kind to tackle these questions in a systematic way from a number of allied perspectives: from phenomenology to physiology, animal behaviour to metacognition and from PET scans to paper and pencil tests. A number of authors from the United Kingdom and the United States have made contributions; all are acknowledged experts in the field. The chapters each contain a concise review of the particular topic, empirical data and also a theoretical overview. The Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia will be required reading for all serious students of schizophrenia from both medical and psychology backgrounds.

Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy (MIT) remains unique in providing instruments for dealing with clients with prominent emotional inhibition and suppression, a population for whom treatment options are largely lacking. This book provides clinicians with techniques to treat this population, including guided imagery and re-scripting, two-chairs, role-play, body-oriented work and interpersonal mindfulness. Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy is aimed at increasing clients’ awareness of their inner world, fostering a sense of agency over their experience, and dismantling the core, embodied aspects of the schemas. The techniques included also provide clients with fresh instruments to overcome pain and act creatively in their everyday life. Using an improved version of the MIT decision-making procedure, the authors have provided a set of techniques aimed at modifying mental imagery, body states, and behaviour, as well as at steering attention to avoid falling prey to rumination. The book is structured to gently push clients towards change, but also to always prioritize the clients’ goals and needs. Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy serves as an important guide for clinicians of any orientation.

"Cognitive Remediation to Improve Functional Outcomes provides mental health practitioners with the background knowledge, hands-on methods, and tools they need to provide CR to patients in a way that maximizes the transfer of cognitive gains to everyday functioning"--

Metacognition is the capacity to reflect upon and evaluate cognition and behaviour. Long of interest to philosophers and psychologists, metacognition has recently become the target of research in the cognitive neurosciences. By combining brain imaging, computational modeling, neuropsychology and insights from psychiatry, the present book offers a picture of the metacognitive functions of the brain. Chapters cover the definition and measurement of metacognition in humans and non-human animals, the computational underpinnings of metacognitive judgments the cognitive neuroscience of self-monitoring ranging from confidence to error-monitoring and neuropsychiatric studies of disorders of metacognition. This book provides an invaluable overview of a rapidly emerging and important field within cognitive neuroscience.

A few disorders have some of the same symptoms as schizophrenia including schizoaffective disorders, schizophreniform disorder, schizotypal and schizoid personality disorders, delusional disorder, and autism (schizophrenia spectrum disorders). Since the 2000 there has been significant progress in our understanding of the early presentations, assessment, suspected neuropathology, and treatment of these disorders. Recent technological breakthroughs in basic sciences hold promise for advancing our understanding of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. This collective monograph reviewers recent researches regarding the origins, onset, course, and outcome of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. In particular, this book will be illustrate new developments in terms of conceptual models, and research methodology, genetics and genomics, brain imaging and neurochemical studies, neurophysiology and information processing in schizophrenia spectrum disorders patients. Also will be highlighted new developments in our understanding of the childhood psychosis, prodromal and first-episode states, in treatment and rehabilitation. Thus, the purpose of this book is to provide up-to-date overview of the rapid advances made in the clinical and basic science studies supporting our understanding of the relationship between cerebral processes and clinical, cognitive and other presentations of the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. In addition, this book aims to monitor important research developments, which may be relevant to treatment, and rehabilitation of patients.

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions. Christopher D. Frith has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and pioneer in the fields of schizophrenia, consciousness, and social cognition. A specially written introduction gives an overview of his career and contextualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. This collection reflects the various directions of Frith’s work, which has become increasingly philosophically oriented throughout his career, and enables the reader to trace major developments in these areas over the last forty years. Frith has had his work nominated for the Royal Society Science Book Award and, in 2009, was awarded the Fyssen Foundation Prize for his work on neuropsychology. He has also been awarded several prestigious prizes for his collaborative work with Uta Frith. This book is an essential read for those students and researchers engaged in the fields of social cognition, cognitive psychology and consciousness studies.

Trends and Prospects in Metacognition presents a collection of chapters dealing principally with independent areas of empirical Metacogition research. These research foci, such as animal metacognition, neuropsychology of metacognition, implicit learning, metacognitive experiences, metamemory, young children's Metacogition, theory of mind, metacognitive knowledge, decision making, and interventions for the enhancement of metacognition, have all emerged as trends in the field of metacognition. Yet, the resulting research has not converged, precluding an integration of concepts and findings. Presenting a new theoretical framework, Trends and Prospects in Metacognition extends the classical definitions offered by Flavell and Nelson to carry the prospect of more integrated work into the future. By opening the possibility to cross the boundaries posed by traditionally independent research areas, this volume provides a foundation for the integration of research paradigms and concepts and builds on the relationship between metacognition and consciousness, while integrating basic with applied research.

Patients with personality disorders need targeted treatments which are able to deal with the specific aspects of the core pathology and to tackle the challenges they present to the treatment clinicians. Such patients, however, are often difficult to engage, are prone to ruptures in the therapeutic alliance, and have difficulty adhering to a manualized treatment. Giancarlo Dimaggio, Antonella Montano, Raffaele Popolo and Giampaolo Salvatore aim to change this, and have developed a practical and systematic manual for the clinician, using Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy (MIT), and including detailed procedures for dealing with a range of personality disorders. The book is divided into two parts, Pathology, and Treatment, and provides precise instructions on how to move from the basic steps of forming an alliance, drafting a therapy contract and promoting self-reflections, to the more advanced steps of promoting change and helping the patient move toward health and adaptation. With clinical examples, summaries of therapies, and excerpts of session transcripts, Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy for Personality Disorders will be welcomed by psychotherapists, clinical psychologists and other mental health professionals involved in the treatment of personality disorders.

Could CRT provide the first structured method of alleviating cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia? Cognitive Remediation Therapy for Schizophrenia describes the background and development of this new psychological therapy and demonstrates how it provides the first structured help to overcome the thinking problems associated with schizophrenia. In three sections, the book covers the theoretical and empirical underpinning of cognitive remediation therapy and explores its application. Part I, 'The Development of Therapy', provides the historical context and theoretical background to the therapy and emphasizes the value of rehabilitating cognitive deficits. In Part II, 'Improving Cognitive Processes', the process and effects of changing cognition are examined. Finally, in Part III, 'The Process of Therapy', the authors provide a clinical guide to the delivery of cognitive remediation therapy and use case examples to support its efficacy. This book is the first to describe an individual cognitive remediation therapy programme based on a clear model of the relationship between thinking and behaviour. It will be of both academic and clinical value to all those health professionals and clinical academics who want not only to understand the relationships between thought and action but also to intervene to improve therapy.

Recovery, Meaning-Making, and Severe Mental Illness offers practitioners an integrative treatment model that will stimulate and harness their creativity, allowing for the formation of new ideas about wellness in the face of profound suffering. The model, Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy (MERIT), complements current treatment modalities and can be used by practitioners from a broad range of theoretical backgrounds. By using metacognitive capacity as a guide to intervention, MERIT stretches and strengthens practitioners’ capacity for reflection and allows them to better use their unique knowledge to help people who are confronting the suffering and chaos that often comes from psychosis. Clinicians will come away from this book with a variety of tools for helping clients manage their own recovery and confront the issues that accompany an illness-based identity.

This unique manual presents cognitive-behavioral social skills training (CBSST), a step-by-step, empirically supported intervention that helps clients with schizophrenia achieve recovery goals related to living, learning, working, and socializing. CBSST interweaves three evidence-based practices--cognitive-behavioral therapy, social skills training, and problem-solving training--and can be delivered in individual or group contexts. Highly user friendly, the manual includes provider scripts, teaching tools, and engaging exercises and activities. Reproducible consumer workbooks for each module include skills summaries and worksheets. The large-size format facilitates photocopying; purchasers also get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials. Listed in SAMHSA's National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices

Does metacognition—the capacity to self-evaluate one's cognitive performance—derive from a mindreading capacity, or does it rely on informational processes? Joëlle Proust draws on psychology and neuroscience to defend the second claim. She argues that metacognition need not involve metarepresentations, and is essentially related to mental agency.