"Taken together, this study showed that analysis of specificity of empathic deficits helps to better characterize emotional deficits in patients suffering from severe psychiatric disorder. Moreover, our data provide input for disorder-specific psychotherapeutic treatment," they noted.
The findings underscore a need for training to improve high-level emotional competencies, particularly in schizophrenia patients. This training should go beyond emotion recognition training. Also, therapists should encourage patients with bipolar disorder to correct any negative self-evaluation with respect to empathic competencies, especially "by relying on accurate perspective taking in complex social situations as a particular resource," they concluded.
This study was funded by a grant from the IZKF. Dr. Derntl reported receiving support from the German Research Foundation.