Cognitive therapy of schizophrenia: a new therapy for the new millennium

Over the past decade, major advances have been made in extending the principles and therapeutic strategies of cognitive therapy to the treatment of schizophrenia. In a number of large-scale outcome studies with cognitive therapy for schizophrenia, cognitive therapy has been shown to offer significant gains for those patients who have not been wholly helped with medications. It may even serve to prevent the consolidation of the illness if delivered with those in the early stage of the illness. We first outline the "state-of-the-art" conceptualization and strategies employed by cognitive therapists to treat positive and negative symptoms and then review the clinical trials.