NCT06415812

Evolutionary Systems Therapy for Personality Pathology

Evolutionary Systems Therapy for Early Onset of Personality Pathology: A Pilot Study on the Effectiveness and Feasibility With Adolescents and Young Adults

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 21 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Tages Onlus · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 16 Years – 25 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

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.

Detailed 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.

Conditions

• Personality Disorders

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Evolutionary Systems Therapy	Evolutionary Systems Therapy is an individual form of psychotherapy (talk therapy) that has been previously tested trough a randomized controlled trial and a few cases series, confirming its feasibility and safety.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-10-02
• Primary completion: 2024-08-01
• Completion: 2024-09-01
• First posted: 2024-05-16
• Last updated: 2024-05-16

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Italy