PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA

This review examines the impact of dynamic and supportive psychotherap ies (both individual and group) and psychosocial skills training on cl inical and social outcomes for individuals with schizophrenia. The rel atively few controlled trials of individual or group psychotherapies f or persons with schizophrenia exhibit serious methodological problems that limit their generalizability. Reality-oriented approaches appear to be superior to dynamic, insight-oriented psychotherapies, but furth er research is needed to identify and evaluate disorder-specific model s that target specific deficits and disabilities in schizophrenia. Res earch on psychosocial skills training models shows that target skills can be trained and maintained over time. Further work is needed to det ermine the extent to which trained skills generalize from the original training setting to ''real life'' environments.