Cooperation in psychotherapy increases metacognitive abilities: a single-case study

Introduction. Both clinical observations and empirical data suggest that the ability to think about the mental states of themselves and others (i.e., metacognition) is a crucial factor strongly associated to the outcome of individual psychotherapies. Although it has been hypothesized that the activation of cooperation between patient and psychotherapist within psychotherapy sessions may increase metacognitive abilities, few data is still available to support this hypothesis. Methods. We explore the association between cooperation of patient and psychotherapist and the modifications of metacognition abilities along five sessions of a patient with a personality disorder using the Assessing Interpersonal Motivations in Transcripts method (AIMIT) and the Metacognition Assessment Scale (MAS). Results. Our data showed that the activation of cooperation was positively associated with both the MAS total scores and all MAS sub-scales. Discussion and Conclusion. Our results demonstrate that the activation of the cooperation within therapeutic relationship can increase patient’s metacognition and its subsystem (e.g. self-monitoring).