The effectiveness of schema therapy and cinema therapy in improving early maladaptive schemas and harm avoidance temperament in people with an avoidant personality disorder: A single case study

Avoidant personality disorder is a relatively common personality disorder, widely coinciding with other axis I and axis II disorders.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of schema therapy and cinema therapy in improving early maladaptive schemas and harm avoidance temperament dimension in patients with an avoidant personality disorder.

This single-case research used a quasi-experimental multiple-baseline design. Among 18 to 35-year-old patients referred to the Armana Psychological Clinic in 2021, 4 individuals diagnosed with personality disorders based on a semi-structured clinical interview scale were selected by purposeful sampling. The tools used in this study were schema, temperament, and character questionnaires. The therapeutic program was held for 34 sessions of 60-minute, and the follow-up phase was performed 3 months after the end of the intervention. The data were analyzed by drawing charts and calculating clinical significance indices.

Participants’ scores in terms of schemas showed a descending trend from baseline to the end of the treatment, indicating slight improvement (25%-49%). Regarding the avoidance temperament variable, the scores showed a downward direction compared to baseline, revealing an improvement percentage of less than 25%. The scores of clinical significance indices (RCI≥1.96) in both variables indicated the effectiveness of the therapeutic method.

Schema therapy and cinema therapy were efficient in treating maladaptive schemas in patients with an avoidant personality disorder; however, efficacy was inadequate for correcting the variable of harm avoidance temperament.