Telehealth Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Youth at Risk for Psychosis

"CBT skills group is designed to boost peer support, reduce isolation, normalize psychotic-like experiences to lessen distress, reduce cognitive biases, facilitate positive beliefs, and enhance reasoning and decision-making. CBT skills group uses CBT to Prevent Paranoia manual to teach individuals to make adaptive appraisals of their experiences (e.g. voices and other cognitive intrusions) to prevent the perception of such events as threatening."

CBT skills learned in group are personalized in individual sessions focused on: a) facilitating learning of CBT skills; b) tailoring CBT skills to personal goals; c) facilitating successful interaction with peers in the group; and d) providing academic and vocational support. Youth may opt to invite family members to join individual sessions as needed.

"Family members are taught the same CBT skills that are taught to CHR youth to facilitate use of CBT skills at home. Family members also learn how to prompt CHR youth to use CBT skills through effective communication, such as empathic listening and encouraging alternative explanations. CBT skills group for family members uses a combination of didactic learning (skills are described in CBT Skills for Families manual and demonstrated via video examples) and practice (skills are role-played). Youth attend one group session and one individual session per week, and family members attend one group session per week."