Rebuilding a Sense of Self & the World After Psychosis

Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy (MERIT) is a form of integrative individual psychotherapy that seeks to assist adults diagnosed with psychosis to make sense and meaning of the challenges and possibilities in their lives and to find ways to manage these and direct their own recovery.

Building from advances in both cognitive and interpersonal research, MERIT seeks to expand the boundaries of cognitive-behavioral, personal centered and psychodynamic approaches to treatment by focusing on how persons make sense of their experiences of their own purposes and place in the world allowing the development of a sense of belonging to our larger communities.

In contrast to other approaches, MERIT focuses on core processes that should be present in a given session, rather than a predetermined curriculum. This allows for a therapy can be truly tailored to meet the needs of unique individuals in real world clinics while also unlocking therapists unique potential for creativity as they seek to jointly make meaning with the person diagnosed with psychosis.

I was happy to be involved in organizing a webinar during which Paul Lysaker presented the scientific basis for MERIT as well as detailed and inspiring descriptions of its practice allowing practitioners to begin to think about how to integrate this approach into their practice.

Paul H Lysaker has over 35 years of experience providing and supervising recovery oriented forms of psychosocial interventions to adults diagnosed with psychosis. He is also an active researcher and teacher with over 20 years of federal funding for projects related to recovery and the practice of psychosocial rehabilitation. This work has resulted in over 500 peer reviewed publications to date and several books. He is the primary architect of an emerging recovery oriented form of integrative psychotherapy: Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy.

Paul also has a good sense of humor and a good appreciation of the difficulties people face, including the difficulties faced by those struggling with psychosis and those struggling to help them! So I hope you check out the video and let me know what you think of it.