COGNITIVE THERAPY FOR PUNISHMENT PARANOIA - A SINGLE-CASE EXPERIMENT

There is growing agreement that at least certain kinds of delusions de fend against negative self-evaluation, and in consequence that cogniti ve therapy for delusions needs to address issues of self-evaluation mo re explicitly. However, in practice it can be difficult to enable clie nts to see the connection between delusions and self-esteem. The prese nt single-case study exemplifies the conceptual and practical applicat ion of cognitive therapy for individuals who are both paranoid and hav e strong negative self-evaluative beliefs. A multiple-baseline approac h is used, whereby one man's negative self-evaluative belief and two p aranoid delusions are challenged sequentially. Conviction in two of th e three beliefs changes at the point of intervention; conviction in th e third changes prior to intervention. We discuss the details of the c ase, as well as the wider implications for cognitive approaches to del usions.