Narcissistic Traits May Predict Patients ’ Response to CBT for Depression

The presence of narcissistic traits may predict how well a patient responds to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression, according to astudy published inThe Lancet Psychiatry.“In the past decade of personality and personality disorder research, narcissism has emerged as a dimensional construct that is present both in individuals who are mentally healthy and in psychiatric clinical populations,” wrote Maike Richter, M.Sc., Simon Mota, Ph.D., of the University of Müns ter in Germany and colleagues. “Clinical practice shows that narcissistic traits below the threshold for narcissistic personality disorder are common, can lead to interpersonal problems, and might negatively affect psychiatric symptomatology, such as depression severity, treatment adherence, and o utcome.”Richter, Mota, and colleagues investigated the impact of narcissism on depressive symptoms before and after treatment in two large samples of adults aged 18 and older. One included both psychiatric inpatients and patients receiving outpatient psychotherapy at the University Hospital M ünster who were treated with CBT. The second included inpatients treated with psychoanalytic interactional therapy (PIT) at the Asklepios Clinic, a psychiatric hospital in Tiefenbrunn, Germany. PIT is a psychodynamic treatment specially designed for patients with severe personality disorders. Befor e and after treatment, patients completed the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire-short version. The si...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: CBT cognitive-behavior therapy depression narcissism narcissistic traits psychoanalytic interactional therapy The Lancet Psychiatry Source Type: research