Citation

Zwets AJ, Hornsveld RHJ, Muris P, Kanters T, Langstraat E, Marle HJC. Int. J. Forensic Ment. Health 2016; 15(3): 222-234.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Simon Fraser University - Mental Health, Law and Policy Institute, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14999013.2016.1152613

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The first results of psychomotor therapy (PMT) as an additional component to Aggression Replacement Training (ART) were explored in a group of forensic psychiatric inpatients (N = 37). Patients were divided into two groups: ART+PMT (experimental group) and ART+Sports (control group). Primary outcome measures of aggression, anger, and social behavior, and secondary outcome measures of coping behavior and bodily awareness during anger were administered on three occasions: pretreatment, posttreatment (after 35 sessions), and follow-up (15 weeks after the final session). The combined group (experimental and control group) showed clinically significant improvements on observed social behavior, observed aggressive behavior, and self-reported anger, but there were no differences in treatment effects between the experimental group and the control group on these primary outcome measures. However, on secondary outcome measures of bodily awareness during anger and coping behavior, the experimental group displayed somewhat more improvement than the control group. Altogether, the results of this pilot study indicate that the addition of PMT to a treatment program for violent forensic inpatients may indeed result in improvements on specific treatment goals of PMT, whereas its effects on aggressive behavior needs further examination.