Name of current research project:
Evaluation of mentalization-based group therapy for men with antisocial personality disorder.
What is the study about?
This study uses a therapy called Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT) which has already been used to help people with borderline personality disorder.
The main idea behind MBT is the concept of ‘mentalization’, which is a process through which we interpret the actions of ourselves and others by considering underlying intentions, desires, needs, feelings and beliefs.
Put simply, mentalization is the capacity to think about and reflect upon the workings of one’s own mind and other people’s minds. Researchers believe that the ability to mentalize is impaired in people with certain personality disorders, and that this can lead to problematic, distressing and often harmful behaviour, putting both the person themselves and others around them at risk.
In the current study, weekly group MBT therapy will be provided for 18 months to men with antisocial personality disorder who have problems controlling their anger and aggression. The patients will also have individual monthly sessions.
What exactly are we doing?
The purpose of the research is to establish the usefulness of MBT in helping violent men to control their aggressive behaviour.
We hope to do this both by increasing their ability to mentalize, and thus inhibit violent behaviour, and also by giving them a place to discuss the difficulties that have led to them coming to therapy for help.
What will the impact of the study be – how will it make a difference? Or how has it made a difference if the work has finished.
We hope to see a reduction in overall risk and also a decrease in the number and severity of violent and aggressive behaviours.
We also hope that patients will improve in many areas of every day functioning including their ability to manage stress, their general social functioning and relationships with other people, their ability to problem-solve in social situations, their overall general health and well-being and their level of use of alcohol and illegal drugs, which some patients had been abusing at the start of their therapy.
We hope that increasing patients’ ability to mentalize and providing a place where they can safely discuss their problems with others who have experienced similar problems will lead to improvements in some or all of these areas.
Who is working on this study?
The study is part of a larger project which is being conducted at several sites across London. The main researcher is Professor Anthony Bateman who is based at St Ann’s Hospital (Barnet, Enfield and Haringey NHS Trust).
The researchers at the Portman Clinic are Dr Jessica Yakeley and Dr Andrew Williams. They also receive support from an assistant psychologist with the day-to-day running of the project.
Can patients take part in this study – if so how do they go about getting involved?
If you think that this group might be right for you, then please ask your GP to refer you to the Portman Clinic and one of the researchers will offer you an assessment to find out if the group may be able to help you. The maximum number of patients that can be in the group at any one time is eight, but as patients remain in the group for 18 months each, as they leave the group there is room for new people to join.
Where are we currently with this study?
The study began 18 months ago. All of the patients complete a baseline stage of the research, which comprises a range of questionnaires and interviews which assess how things are for them before they start therapy. Once they have begun their group therapy sessions they complete more questionnaires every three months to see how things have changed for them since the last time they completed the questionnaires.
Relevant Tavistock publications:
Yakeley, J. (2010). Working with Violence: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Approach. London: Palgrave Macmillan.