Frederik Weischer Frandsen

Frederik Weischer Frandsen

PhD Student

My PhD project is planned as a sub-study embedded in an ongoing randomized clinical trial (RCT) investigating the beneficial and harmful effects of short-term compared with long-term mentalization-based therapy for outpatients with subthreshold or diagnosed borderline personality disorder, which is currently being conducted at Stolpegaard Psychotherapy Centre, Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark.

The aim of the PhD project is to research the in-session processes of MBT for people suffering from BPD by analysing attachment-related behaviour in the psychotherapeutic dialogue. This will be done by analyzing videotaped therapy sessions with the use of the Patient Attachment Coding System (PACS) and the Therapist Attunement Scales (TASc) developed by Alessandro Talia. The study aims to promote the understanding of change processes in therapy with regard to both patient change (do attachment and mentalization change within therapy, and do these changes explain symptom change?) and therapist attunement (how does therapist attunement facilitate better patient mentalizing?).

The project is financed by the Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark. Sebastian Simonsen is the project supervisor and Professor Stig Bernt Poulsen the principal supervisor. 

ID: 33662343