The Role of Personal Identity in Psychotic Symptoms: a Study With the Repertory Grid Technique

Personal Identity, Cognitive Factors and Psychotic Symptoms in Schizophrenia and Related Disorders: A Cross-sectional Study With the Repertory Grid Technique

Personal identity is being recently recognized as a core element for mental health disorders, with relevant clinical implications. However, scarcity of data exists on its role in schizophrenia and related disorders. The repertory grid (RGT), a technique derived from personal construct theory, has been used in different clinical and non-clinical contexts for the study of the construction perception of self and others, to appreciate aspects of interpersonal construing such as polarization and differentiation (unidimensional thinking) or self-construction.and Our study aims to explore the potential influence of the structure of personal identity and of other relevant cognitive factors (social cognition, metacognition, neurocognition) in positive and negative symptoms in people suffering schizophrenia and related disorders.

Over recent years, the importance of the sense of self and personal identity in psychopathology and its treatment has been highlighted. Several studies inspired in the Personal Construct Psychology framework have found a variety of identity characteristics in clinical conditions such as depression or eating disorders, but the evidence in schizophrenia and other psychotic related disorders is scarce.

In addition, current psychological models of positive and negative symptoms highlight the influence of neurocognition, social cognition and self-concepts in the development and maintenance of psychotic experiences. Despite the recognized need of person-centered approaches to understand psychopathology processes in psychosis, psychological models for explaining psychotic symptoms have not explored sufficiently the role of this kind of person-centered measures.

Aim

1. To examine the influence of the structure of personal identity and other relevant cognitive factors in positive and negative symptoms

Hypotheses

1. Positive symptoms will be influenced by dichotomous thinking style and construction of self as measured with the RGT.
2. Negative symptoms will be affected by the richness of the construct system as measured with the RGT.

Inclusion Criteria:

• diagnosis of schizophrenia, psychotic disorder not otherwise specified, delusional disorder, schizoaffective disorder, brief psychotic disorder, or schizophreniform disorder
• age between 18 and 60 years.
• patients from outpatient mental health units

Exclusion Criteria:

• traumatic brain injury, dementia, or intellectual disability (pre-morbid IQ <70)
• current substance dependence