Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy in Group for Personality Disorders: Preliminary Results from a Pilot Study in a Public Mental Health Setting

Abstract

To build the evidence for a randomized controlled trial, a pilot study was conducted to investigate the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of a group-psychotherapy based on Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy (MIT-G) for patients with personality disorders (PDs). Ten outpatients with PD diagnoses were offered 16 sessions of MIT-G delivered in group format. Effect sizes were calculated for changes from baseline to treatment end for clinical symptoms, interpersonal difficulties, and metacognition. Nine patients finished the full treatment protocol with nonsignificant large effect sizes obtained for change in depression, metacognition, impulsiveness and interpersonal problems measures. This is the first study suggesting that MIT-G is acceptable to outpatients across the spectrum of PDs and is associated with improvements in clinical symptoms, social functioning and metacognition. Despite the limitations of a pilot study, evidence of MIT-G effectiveness was sufficient to warrant further investigation.