Social Cognition Training for Individuals with Schizophrenia: Emerging Evidence

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Abstract
Growing evidence indicates that social cognitive deficits are important, unique determinants of poor functional outcome in schizophrenia. These findings have generated considerable interest in the possibility of intervening at the level of social cognition as a means of improving functional outcome. In this review article, we first briefly describe the major domains of social cognition that have been studied in schizophrenia and their functional relevance for people with this disorder. We then review and critically evaluate recent studies that examined the modifiability of social cognition in schizophrenia through psychosocial interventions, including brief experimental manipulations, longer-term studies that embed social cognitive training in broad, multicomponent treatment packages, and longer-term treatment studies that specifically target social cognitive skills. Emerging evidence indicates that performance on social cognitive tasks is amenable to commonly used intervention techniques and that broad and targeted treatments can lead to improvements across multiple domains of social cognition. We conclude by discussing remaining challenges for this promising line of research.