Key words: process research, single-case studies, psychotherapy narrative patterns, CCRT, personality disorders, relapse
A research on the psychotherapeutic process is presented to empirically analyze the narrative themes that precede the hospitalization during the treatment of a patient with Borderline Personality Disorder. The single-case study is conducted on a patient with personality disorder with comorbidity in substance abuse, generalized anxiety disorder and recurrent major depression. Through the method CCRT (Core Conflictual Relationship Themes) Luborsky (1990) have been assessed the narratives produced through the verbatim transcript of the sessions. In the analysis of the transcripts we found three CCRT themes that have greater pervasiveness between fifteen narrative thematic patterns that the patient produces and their frequencies are analyzed and compared.
Among our findings, can be observed the increase of the pervasiveness of the main CCRT before hospitalization and that the increase of pervasiveness in the main CCRT follows the emergence of a secondary CCRT in previous sessions. The CCRT method appears useful to understand and predict the intra-psychic and interpersonal dynamics preceding the hospitalization of patients with personality disorder. This hypothesis appears promising, but further studies are needed to replicate these results.