The relationship between schemas, depression and psychotic themes was explored in a sample of 26 patients with schizophrenia. Results show an association of underlying depressive schema vulnerabilities with specific psychotic themes. This preliminary investigation provides support for the meaningfulness of psychotic symptoms. This paper implies that schema focused cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) could lead to improvements in linked psychotic symptoms.

This project reports on the effective delivery of a behavioural coping skills programme with a repetitive deliberately self-harming young woman. A simple single case A-B design was employed to evaluate the intervention due to the applied nature of the project and ethical considerations. An assessment period prior to the intervention phase constituted an extended baseline. Data concerning the primary dependent variable, deliberate self-harm, were collected for a 3-month follow-up period.

Childhood anxiety disorders often have a poor prognosis. Despite this, there are currently no published treatment protocols for young children with anxiety difficulties. Individually focused therapies (e.g. CBT) are useful for older children, but likely to be less so for this group. This paper describes a pilot investigation of a new CBT based parenting intervention for the treatment of children aged 9 years and under. Sixteen parents of 11 anxious children took part in a 10-week intervention, completing the Child Behaviour Checklist at three time points. The intervention was based on a new cognitively enhanced parenting package, with an emphasis on coping with internalizing symptoms, and with additional modules on the specific skills needed for managing anxiety. All children were reported to experience substantial decreases in their internalizing symptoms by the end of the study. Parents' satisfaction with the intervention was high. This is a promising new intervention for the treatment of a currently neglected group.

Affective symptoms are often present and under-treated in schizophrenia. This case study reports the effect of treatment of a specific phobia and associated avoidance on the psychotic symptoms of a patient with medication resistant schizophrenia. The treatment of the specific phobia and agoraphobia followed a traditional systematic desensitization procedure. The successful treatment of the phobias led to improvements in psychotic symptoms. Previously, the client had only a limited response to a number of antipsychotic medications including clozapine but responded well to a traditional systematic desensitization program that produced positive consequences for the psychotic symptomatology. The clinical and theoretical aspects of this case are discussed.

Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy is an international multidisciplinary journal for the publication of original research, of an experimental or clinical nature, that contributes to the theory, practice and evaluation of behaviour therapy. As such, the scope of the journal is very broad and articles relevant to most areas of human behaviour and human experience, which would be of interest to members of the helping and teaching professions, will be considered for publication.