Psychotherapy Process Research in Schizophrenia Paranoid Type: The Investigation of Delusion Formation through the Evaluation of In-Session Events

The study aimed to investigate delusion formation in paranoid type schizophrenia through the evaluation of the relation between specific in-session events and the session outcome. Six transcripts of integrative psychotherapy sessions -three with good and three with bad outcome- of an individual suffering from paranoid type schizophrenic symptoms were evaluated by five raters in order: a) to locate the in-session events related to delusion formation and b) to explore the relation of these events to a number of mechanisms postulated to be involved in delusion formation, utilizing the newly developed Scale for the In-session Investigation of Delusion Formation. Although, no significant differences were found in the total number of the in-session events counted in the sessions with good and bad outcome, the evaluations obtained by the raters were found to be affected by the patient’s general decrease in psychopathological symptoms due to a significant parallel reduction of anxiety and delusions in paranoid type schizophrenia.