Transcript Thessaloniki 2005

Autobiographical Memory Remediation Therapy in Schizophrenia:
Results from an Exploratory Clinical Training
Sylvie Blairy
1
1
Aurore Neumann² Hilde Nachtergael3 Damien Lecompte3 & Pierre Philippot².
University of Liege, Department of Cognitive Sciences, Liege, Belgium. ²Catholique University of Louvain, Department ECSA, Louvain-la-Neuve,
Belgium, 3Free University of Brussels, Brugmann hospital, Department de Psychiatry,Brussels, Belgium; * Contact: [email protected]
Introduction
Autobiographical memory (ABM) relates to the capacity of people to recollect personal events from their lives. It is an inherent part of personal
identity and is strongly related to its development (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2004). Schizophrenia is associated with a reduction of specific
autobiographical memories, that is memories for a personal events, located in time and place and lasting no more than a day in duration (Riutort
et al., 2003; Neumann et al., in prep). This impairment is marked after the onset of the disease (Riutort et al., 2003), and consistent with the
existence of an abnormal personal identity development in patients. The aim of the present therapy was to increase schizophrenia patients'
capacities to recall specific personal life events.
Therapeutical goals :
Improve patient’s performance in the recall of specific personal memories, with help of keeping a diary
Reinforcement of identity by working on the definition of the self.
Working on goals and objectives of life and development of projection capabilities in the future
Procedure:
Course:
Subjects:
Five schizophrenic patients (2 men, 3 women).
Age between 23 and 50 years.
Group therapy.
During 10 weeks with a ratio of one hour and a half a week.
Taking an autobiographical memory test:
TeMA (Neumann & Philippot) during the first and last session.
 1st session:
- Psycho-education on cognitive
problems in schizophrenia.
- Explication of the role of ABM
(exercises)
- Working on motivation, starting from
patient’s complaints.
 Content of the following sessions:
Training of conscious recollection of events reported in the dairy
Training of recall of events from previous weeks
(indices).
Working on personal identity: how do I see myself and how do
the others see me:
Find 3 adjectives describing me best.
Taking the TeMA (pretest)
Report 3 specific memories for each adjective.
Find 3 adjectives describing the other people in the group.
 2nd session:
- Learning to keep a diary
Working on roles in life:
Dairy’s content:
Working on aims in life
Brief description of the event
Where ?
When ?
With who ?
What did I think?
What did I feel?
Emotional intensity (0-10)
Personal importance (0-10)
Define 3 roles and report a specific events for
each of them
Reflections on the strategies to adopt to achieve goals.
Measure:
Autobiographical memory. The ability to recall a specific life event was
assessed using an autobiographical memory test TeMA (Neumann &
Philippot, in prep.). Participants were required to generate specific
personal events which could be located in time and place in responses to a
word cues. Ten word cues, five positive and five negative were presented.
For each word cue, participants had one minute to provide a brief written
report of a personal event. Specifically, participants were asked “Can you
recall a personal event that the word…… could evoke?”
Results:
Participants are able to recall more specific events after the training period t(3) = 9,00, p < .003.
Patients’s scores (TeMa): number of reported specific events (max. = 10)
Participants
1
2
3
4
5
Pretest
3
3
5
3
4
Postest
8
6
6
8
9
Discussion:
The results suggested that specific autobiographical memory of schizophrenia patients may be improved by cognitive remediation
therapy. Moreover, keeping a diary allowed these patients to stimulate the self-definition and personal aims in life. Long-term
efficacy and training influence on the global functioning remain to be evaluated.