Evolutionary Systems Therapy for Personality Pathology (ESTP)

Tages Onlus

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Personality Disorders

Treatments: Behavioral: Evolutionary Systems Therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06415812

0124

Details and patient eligibility

About

Evolutionary Systems Therapy is a new form of therapy that has been previously tested in a randomized controlled trial and in a few cases of patients diagnosed with Cluster A personality disorders. The objective of the present study is to investigate the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of Evolutionary Systems Therapy in all forms of personality disorders. The study includes three project actions: (i) a case series on adolescents with personality disorders; (ii) a case series on young adults with personality disorders; (iii) an ecological momentary assessment study to confirm the conceptualization model on all the patients.

Full description

To explore the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of Evolutionary Systems Therapy, the present study includes three actions. In the first action investigators enroll 6 adolescents (16-19 years) with personality disorders, in the second 15 young adults (20-25 years) with personality disorders. All participants receive 6 months of psychotherapy. The two subsamples of patients (adolescents and young adults) are assessed based on the conceptualization model of Evolutionary Systems Therapy which envisages three macro-organizations of personality (consistently with dimensional and hierarchical models such as Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology): internalizing, externalizing, schizotypal. Investigators plan to recruit patients until the size of the sub-samples is reached (15 young adults divided into 3 groups of 5 patients, each for each of the three interpersonal patterns; 6 adolescents divided into 3 groups of 2 patients, each for each of the three patterns interpersonal). In the third action, an ecological momentary assessment study will investigate the consistency over time between the conceptualization model and the experiences of the young adult patients enrolled: investigators will explore whether the hypothesized conceptualization will be confirmed by collected data on the patients' interpersonal styles.

Enrollment: 21 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 16 to 25 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Being diagnosed with personality pathology in accordance with Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 - Alternative Model of Personality Disorders Module I
• Being capable of read and sign the inform consent form

Exclusion criteria

• Being diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and other psychosis
• Being diagnosed with bipolar disorders
• Being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder
• Being diagnosed with intellectual disability
• Being under any psychopharmacological or psychosocial treatment

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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21 participants in 1 patient group

Psychotherapy

Experimental group

Description:

All the participants receive as active treatment a form of psychotherapy for personality disorders (Evolutionary Systems Therapy). The treatment last 6 months (24 weekly sessions, each lasting 50-60 minutes).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Evolutionary Systems Therapy