A case study on a severe paranoid personality disorder client treated with metacognitive interpersonal therapy.

Abstract

Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is a severe condition, lacking specialized and empirically supported treatment. To provide the clinician with insights into how to treat this condition, we present a case study of a 61-year-old man with severe PPD who presented with ideas of persecution, emotionally charged hostility, and comorbid antisocial personality disorder. The client was treated with 6 months of Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy, which included: creating a shared formulation of his paranoid attitudes; trying to change his inner self-image of self-as-inadequate and his interpersonal schemas where he saw the others as threatening. Guided imagery and rescripting techniques, coupled with behavioral experiments, were used to promote a change. At the end of the therapy the client reported a reliable change in general symptomatology and, specifically, in interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, and paranoid ideation; he could no longer be diagnosed as PPD and only some paranoid and antisocial characteristics remained.

• Authors: Simone Cheli, Veronica Cavalletti, Raffaele Popolo, Giancarlo Dimaggio
• Journal: Journal of clinical psychology (J Clin Psychol) Vol. 77 Issue 8 Pg. 1807-1820 (08 2021) ISSN: 1097-4679 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 34263957 (Publication Type: Case Reports, Journal Article)
• Copyright: © 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Topics

• Antisocial Personality Disorder (therapy)
• Hostility
• Humans
• Interpersonal Relations
• Male
• Metacognition
• Middle Aged
• Paranoid Personality Disorder (therapy)
• Self Concept