Key words: attachment, treatment, schema therapy
Objective: Young’s Schema Therapy (ST) has become widespread among practitioners that work with adults with maladaptive functioning such as participants with personality disorders or post-traumatic stress. This therapy focuses on identifying and adapting early maladaptive schemas that form the base of personality pathology. In a budget-constrained society both the costs and benefits of a new treatment form are important. ‘ReAttach’ is a short, and accessible new intervention for adults and children with maladaptive patterns based on the principles of attachment, social cognitive training and play.
To examine the effect of five sessions ReAttach on early maladaptive schemas in adults with a variety of psychological complaints. A second objective was to assess the transferability of the method and perform treatment integrity check for the professionals in training.
Method: Two cohorts of therapists (n=44 and n=22) were trained to perform ReAttach with two groups of participants (n=240 and n=82). The extent of maladaptive schemas was assessed with the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ3), before and after five ReAttach therapy sessions.
Results and Conclusions: the data reported here support the hypothesis that ReAttach may be an attractive experimental treatment for adults with maladaptive schemas. Although all therapists were newly trained, and therefore relatively inexperienced, a significant reduction of maladaptive schema scores on the YSQ3 was found.
