Compliance Therapy: An Intervention Targeting Insight and Treatment Adherence in Psychotic Patients

Abstract

A randomized controlled trial of a new intervention based on motivational interviewing and cognitive approaches to psychosis (Compliance Therapy) has shown improvements in insight, attitudes to medication and compliance in an unselected sample of consecutively admitted patients with acute psychotic disorders. In the introduction, previous research focusing on cognitive interventions in psychosis and systematically tested psychoeducational approaches to compliance are reviewed. The content of our intervention is described with examples of the principal techniques used, together with a description of the progress of therapy in two individual cases. We conclude that the intervention is eminently applicable in the typical clinical setting.