Rorschach-profile in panic disorder

The Rorschach test was applied to four groups: 41 Panic Disorder (PD), 14 Major Depression (MD), 11 Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and 18 normal subjects. The aims were to describe the test profile of PD patients and to discuss implications for cognitive processing ability and personality structure. A hypothesis of a borderline personality structure in PD patients, based on psychodynamic literature, was tested, but was not unambiguously supported. A "loose", borderline-like personality structure and disturbances in processing abilities, however, characterized PD-patients. The normal subjects surprisingly provided many Fabulized Combinations, a response type, considered suspect of borderline pathology, but also showed more signs of integrative and synthesizing abilities than the other groups.     

A randomized pilot study of mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy and group cognitive‐behavioral therapy for young adults with social phobia

Piet, J., Hougaard, E., Hecksher, M. S., & Rosenberg, N. K. (2010). A randomized pilot study of mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy and group cognitive‐behavioral therapy for young adults with social phobia. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 403–410. Twenty‐six young participants, 18–25 years, with social phobia (SP) were randomly assigned to eight 2‐hour sessions of group mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and twelve 2‐hour sessions of group cognitive‐behavioral therapy (CBT) in a crossover design with participants receiving treatments in reversed order. Outcome was assessed after treatments, and at 6‐ and 12‐month follow‐ups. MBCT achieved moderate‐high pre‐post effect sizes (d = 0.78 on a composite SP measure), not significantly different from, although numerical lower than those of CBT (d = 1.15). Participants in both groups further improved in the periods following their first and second treatment until 6‐months follow‐up (pre‐follow‐up ds = 1.42 and 1.62). Thus, MBCT might be a useful, low cost treatment for SP, although, probably, less efficacious than CBT.