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.

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.

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

Rather than arguing for one best approach for treating personality disorder, this pragmatic book emphasizes the benefits of weaving together multiple well-established intervention strategies to meet each patient's needs. A framework is provided for constructing a comprehensive case formulation, planning treatment, and developing a strong therapeutic alliance. The clinician is guided to utilize techniques from all major therapeutic orientations to address transdiagnostic personality symptoms and problems involving emotion regulation, interpersonal functioning, and self and identity. Showing how to pick and choose from "what works" in a thoughtful, coordinated fashion, the book features rich clinical illustrations, including a chapter-length case example. See also Handbook of Personality Disorders, Second Edition, edited by W. John Livesley and Roseann Larstone, the leading reference that surveys theory, research, and evidence-based treatments.

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.

Practical and evidence-based, this unique book is the first comprehensive text focused on person-centered approaches to people with serious mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It reflects a range of views and findings regarding assessment, treatment, rehabilitation, self-help, policy-making, education and research. It is highly recommended for all healthcare professionals, students, researchers and educators involved in general practice, psychiatry, nursing, social work, clinical psychology and therapy. Healthcare service providers, and policy makers and shapers, will find the book's wide-ranging, multi-professional approach enlightening. 'Serious Mental Illness reflects a continued distancing from the outmoded and unsubstantiated belief that people with severe mental illnesses could not recover, and that they would respond positively only to goals and treatment plans chosen, designed and implemented by providers in order to prevent their further deterioration. Anyone with an interest in the concept of person-centered approaches will discover new ideas in this book. Indeed, anyone with an interest in person-centered approaches has to read this book. Not only is it the first such book on person-centered approaches, but it will serve as the gold standard in this topic area for years to come.' William A Anthony, in the Foreword

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.