Publications by authors named "I Aarts"

Article Synopsis
  • A study investigated whether adding group schema therapy (GST) to individual trauma-focused treatment (imagery rescripting, ImRs) improves outcomes for patients with PTSD and cluster C personality disorders (PD).* -
  • 130 adult outpatients were randomly assigned to receive either ImRs alone or ImRs plus GST, with results measured one year later to assess PTSD severity and other secondary outcomes.* -
  • Both treatment groups showed significant reductions in PTSD severity, but there was no notable difference between the two, suggesting that standard trauma-focused treatment may be the better first-line option for these patients.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: High dropout and low treatment attendance rates among patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and personality disorders (PDs) continue to pose a significant challenge. Despite numerous studies focusing on enhancing treatment attendance, the identification of consistent and reliable predictors in patients with PTSD and comorbid PDs remains limited.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate a wide range of potential predictors of treatment attendance, encompassing demographic, patient-severity, treatment, and therapist-related variables in patients with PTSD and comorbid borderline and/or cluster C PDs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Although comorbidity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and/or cluster C personality disorders (CPD) is common, neural correlates of this comorbidity are unknown.

Methods: We acquired functional MRI scans during an emotional face task in participants with PTSD + CPD (n = 34), PTSD + BPD (n = 24), PTSD + BPD + CPD (n = 18) and controls (n = 30). We used ANCOVAs and Bayesian analyses on specific ROIs in a fearful vs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition which has been related to problems in emotional regulation, memory and cognitive control. Psychotherapy has a non-response rate of around 50% and understanding the neurobiological working mechanisms might help improve treatment. To integrate findings from multiple smaller studies, we performed the first meta-analysis of changes in brain activation with a specific focus on emotional processing after psychotherapy in PTSD patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Neural alterations related to treatment outcome in patients with both post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid personality disorder are unknown. Here we describe the protocol for a neuroimaging study of treatment of patients with PTSD and comorbid borderline (BPD) or cluster C (CPD) personality disorder traits. Our specific aims are to 1) investigate treatment-induced neural alterations, 2) predict treatment outcome using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 3) study neural alterations associated with BPD and CPD in PTSD patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF