USS Training to Improve Social Function in People With Psychosis

Psychotic spectrum disorders (PSD) are associated with poor social function. By doing this study, the investigators hope to learn which of two different types of 2-month long training courses is more effective in improving day-to-day interactions and quality of life.

Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two training courses. All participants will be asked to fill out questionnaires, engage in interviews, and complete paper and pencil tasks at the beginning of the study, at the halfway point of the training course (1 month), and end of the training course (2 months), and another 2 months later. One training focuses on how to make good judgments about what other people may be thinking or feeling in social situations, and why people might act in certain ways in different situations. The other training focuses on different strategies for handling everyday problems and stressors. Both trainings are done in one-on-one sessions with a research staff member. There will be 16-20 training sessions, each about 45-60 minutes long. The investigators will ask participants to attend 2 training sessions per week, so the total training time should be about 2 months.

Inclusion Criteria: Veteran with diagnosis of psychotic disorder (e.g. schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, psychosis NOS, etc); psychiatrically stable (30 or more days since last hospitalization/change in psychiatric medication) fluent in English able to provide legal written informed consent Exclusion Criteria: current substance use disorder developmental disability severe, uncorrected auditory/visual impairment diagnosis of medical or neurological illness known to impair brain function including dementia, presence of seizures, history of head trauma with loss of consciousness > 1hr, or clear cognitive sequelae from other illness or injury currently enrolled in another treatment study targeting, or expected to impact, functioning.

Completely de-identified data will be made available to other investigators, with written request and IRB approval, ideally under a data use agreement.