http://forum.psychlinks.ca/ Schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and related syndromes. en Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:59:17 GMT vBulletin 60 http://forum.psychlinks.ca/images/misc/rss.png http://forum.psychlinks.ca/ http://forum.psychlinks.ca/schizophrenia-and-related-disorders/24279-the-relationship-between-interpersonal-self-concept-and-paranoia-new-post.html Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:45:32 GMT The Relationship between Interpersonal Self-Concept and Paranoia in Patients with Schizophrenia (http://www.beckinstituteblog.org/?p=1701) Beck... The Relationship between Interpersonal Self-Concept and Paranoia in Patients with Schizophrenia
Beck Institute Blog

A recent study published in Behavior Therapy examined the relationship between interpersonal self-concept and global self-worth, and psychotic and depressive symptoms in patients with psychosis. The participants consisted of 83 patients, all of whom had diagnoses on the schizophrenia spectrum, and 33 healthy individuals. The researchers measured each participant’s global self-worth, interpersonal self-concept, dysfunctional beliefs, positive and negative symptoms, delusions, paranoia, and depressive symptoms.

Results showed that (1) Global self-worth is related more to depression than it is to paranoia, (2) the perception of not being accepted by others is more related to psychotic symptoms, (3) individuals who believe that others evaluate them positively have lower levels of paranoia, regardless of their dysfunctional beliefs levels, and (4) negative self-concept (i.e., not being respected , trusted, loved, and accepted by others) is most closely related to positive symptoms, paranoia, and psychosis.

The significant correlation between dysfunctional interpersonal self-concept, dysfunctional attitudes, and paranoia reinforces the formulation-based cognitive approach to delusions and the importance of eliminating dysfunctional self-concepts. The results of this study suggest that cognitive therapy may be successful in treating persecutory delusions and paranoia by focusing on interpersonal and threat-related self-concepts.

Lincoln, T.M., Mehl, S., Ziegler, M. Kesting, M.L., Exner, C., & Rief, W. (2010). Is fear of others linked to an uncertain sense of self? The relevance of self-worth, interpersonal self-concepts, and dysfunctional beliefs to paranoia. Behavior Therapy, 41, 187-197. ]]> Daniel http://forum.psychlinks.ca/schizophrenia-and-related-disorders/24279-the-relationship-between-interpersonal-self-concept-and-paranoia.html http://forum.psychlinks.ca/schizophrenia-and-related-disorders/24252-schizophrenia-patients-fail-to-see-faces-as-a-whole-new-post.html Mon, 06 Sep 2010 23:23:13 GMT Schizophrenia patients fail to see faces as a whole... Schizophrenia patients fail to see faces as a whole
By Andrew Czyzewski, MedWire News
23 June 2010
Psychol Med 2010; 40: 1159–1169

The difficulty schizophrenia patients have in recognizing and processing faces appears to be explained by an inability to integrate individual features into an overall facial configuration, study results suggest.

Such defective facial processing may contribute to the social and interpersonal difficulties often seen in schizophrenia, say Steven Silverstein (University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, USA) and colleagues.

“Past studies in schizophrenia have demonstrated impairments in the processing of faces, although the factors responsible for this remain elusive,” they comment in the journal Psychological Medicine.

Studies of visual processing have demonstrated that recognition of details in objects and recognition of overall patterns utilize two different cognitive pathways.

This concept of "spatial frequency" is an important tool for understanding how individuals process faces, Silverstein and colleagues note.

It is believed that high spatial frequencies are used for perceiving details like eyes and lips, whereas larger-scale differences and the overall configuration of an object is perceived through low spatial frequencies.

To investigate how this might be compromised in schizophrenia, the researchers tested 14 patients with schizophrenia and 13 mentally healthy controls with an emotionally neutral, gender-discrimination task.

They used three conditions: faces characterized by the full spectrum of spatial frequencies (normal photographs); faces with only low spatial frequency information (blurred images with unclear features); and faces with high spatial frequency information (stenciled images with only features).

All participants were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging, focusing on the fusiform gyrus, which has been consistently linked with face processing.

The researchers found that patients with schizophrenia performed significantly worse at recognizing faces with low spatial frequency and normal photographs compared with mentally healthy controls.

By contrast, patients with schizophrenia actually scored slightly better at recognizing high spatial frequency faces than controls.

Surprisingly, patients with schizophrenia showed a higher activation in the fusiform gyrus than controls whilst performing tasks for both low spatial frequency and high spatial frequency.

The researchers suggest that this latter finding may represent a compensatory mechanism.

“It is possible that form-deficient information is reaching the fusiform area, requiring a greater than normal degree of feature assembly or analysis before a face representation is formed,” they comment.

Free abstract ]]> David Baxter http://forum.psychlinks.ca/schizophrenia-and-related-disorders/24252-schizophrenia-patients-fail-to-see-faces-as-a-whole.html