The public defence will be held as a video conference over Zoom.
The defence will follow regular procedure as far as possible, hence it will be open to the public and the audience can ask ex auditorio questions when invited to do so.
Click here to participate in the public defence
Due to copyright reasons, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. In order for the faculty to have time to process the order, it must be received by the faculty no later than 2 days prior to the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. Inquiries regarding the thesis after the public defence must be addressed to the candidate.
Digital Trial Lecture – time and place
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Gerdina Marieke Pijnenborg, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
- Second opponent: Professor Nynke Boonstra, Department of care and social studies, NHL Stenden, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Øyvind Bø, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Associate Professor Pål Zeiner, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Associate Professor Elisabeth Haug, Innlandet Hospital Trust / NTNU: Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Summary
Basic self-disturbances (BSDs) are disturbances in the person’s ownership of one’s own thoughts, feelings, bodily experiences and history, and linked to the prereflective level of self. BSDs selectively aggregate in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (schizophrenia), and are considered as core features of schizophrenia. Earlier follow-up studies have shown BSDs as stabile phenomena.
This study is a seven-year follow-up of a study of young patients (median age 22 years) recruited in their first treatment of a psychotic disorder. At both baseline and follow-up, the participants went through an extensive diagnostic and clinical evaluation. BSDs were measured by the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE) manual. Fifty-six (62%) of the initial 90 patients participated in the present study, and include 35 patients with schizophrenia and 21 patients with a psychotic disorder outside the schizophrenia spectrum (other psychoses).
The main aims of the study was to explore the stability of BSDs over time, and to explore the associations between BSDs at both baseline and follow-up, and objective measures of mental health (with defined criteria for recovery) and subjective experience of health (Sense of Coherence (SOC)).
The results of the study was that BSDs are less stable in the schizophrenia group than generally assumed, with a statistically significant reduction from baseline to follow-up, but still significant higher in schizophrenia than in other psychoses that showed a stable low level of BSDs.
Initially low level of BSDs and reductions in BSDs increase the chances of attaining recovery. We found a significant association between low levels of BSDs and experiencing subjectively good mental health (SOC), and discuss that BSDs probably affect SOC and not vice versa.
This study shows that it is important to have a focus on BSDs in assessment of mental disease and in therapy, with the goal to reduce the level of BSDs and increase recovery and experience of mental health.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.