Inpatient Schema Therapy for Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder – a Case Study

Neural correlates of intimate picture stimuli in females

Jacob et al. (2011) previously reported on intimate picture stimuli for emotion research in females in Psychiatry Research. Difficulties to engage in intimate relations constitute problems of many mental disorders, and intimacy must be differentiated from pure sex drive. Functional neuroimaging is an important tool to understand the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders. We now studied cerebral activation in response to intimate stimuli in 35 healthy women. Comparison stimuli were taken from the International Affective Picture System. Neuroimaging revealed increased activation in bilateral occipitotemporal, parietal and anterior cingulate cortices extending to the orbitofrontal area. The…

Group Therapy Module to Enhance Self-Esteem in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder: A Pilot Study

Psychotherapeutic treatments of borderline personality disorder (BPD) often focus on severe behavioral problems. Until now, few techniques have been developed to specifically address low self-esteem in BPD. We developed a 6-session psychoeducative group therapy module to treat low self-esteem in BPD patients. After developing and piloting the therapy module, a controlled outpatient pilot study was performed. Nineteen female BPD patients participated in the group module after discharge from an inpatient DBT program. Twenty-four female BPD patients served as controls. Outcome was assessed by different self-esteem measures. Results showed a greater improvement in self-esteem in the interventio…

Reliability and Validity of the German Version of the Schema Mode Inventory

This study presents an evaluation of the German version of the Schema Mode Inventory (SMI) including reliability and validity analyses. Psychometric properties were assessed. We analyzed the factor structure, internal reliability as well as intercorrelations between the subscales, and compared it to the results of the original version. This was done in a sample of N = 432 nonpatients, psychiatric patients with axis I and axis II diagnoses, and forensic patients. Results indicated a 14-factor structure of the SMI and good-to-excellent internal reliabilities of the 14 subscales (Cronbach’s α from .70 to .95). Furthermore, groups of nonpatients and psychiatric patients could be differentiated…

Positive erotic picture stimuli for emotion research in heterosexual females

In most experimental studies, emotional pictures are widely used as stimulus material. However, there is still a lack of standardization of picture stimuli displaying erotic relationships, despite the association between a number of psychological problems and severe impairments and problems in intimate relationships. The aim of the study was to test a set of erotic stimuli, with the potential to be used in experimental studies, with heterosexual female subjects. Twenty International Affective Picture System (IAPS) pictures and an additional 100 pictures showing romantic but not explicitly sexual scenes and/or attractive single males were selected. All pictures were rated with respect to val…