Integrated Psychological Therapy and Integrated Neurocognitive Therapy

This chapter contains 2 examples of combined group therapy approaches for schizophrenia patients: the integrated psychological therapy (IPT) and one of its further developments, the integrated neurocognitive therapy (INT), both initially designed in our laboratory in Switzerland. IPT represents one of the first comprehensive, manual-driven cognitive-behavioral treatment approaches combining cognitive remediation and the improvement of social competence. INT is a newly developed therapy program actually evaluated in an ongoing international randomized controlled trial. It combines neurocognitive and social cognitive enhancement based on the cognitive domains defined by the National Institute of Mental HealthMeasurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (NIMH-MATRICS) initiative. In this chapter therapists and researchers find information about empirically based theoretical framework, implementation as well as an overview of didactics and exercises of IPT and INT. Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel The diagnosis of schizophrenia often implies a poor functional outcome [1, 2] responsible for long treatment and high costs of care [1, 3]. Two thirds of the schizophrenia patients suffer from a deterioration of social functioning, even after remission from psychotic symptoms. Social dysfunction is a source of great distress for patients as well as family members [4]. Therefore, the consumer-oriented recovery movement promoted by the mental health commission of the USA included the (re-)establishing of social functioning as one of the main topics in psychiatric rehabilitation of schizophrenia patients [5–8]. Today, new research has provided increasing empirical evidence that the functional outcome is strongly affected by the level of cognitive disturbance in schizophrenia patients [e.g. 9–13]. Cross-sectional analyses of the cognitive impacts using empirical models revealed that the relationship of basic neurocognition (attention, memory, executive functions) and functional outcome is mediated by social