Psychopharmacological treatment and personality: Cognitive schemes changes during pharmacological treatments [Psicofarmaci e personalitá: Modificazioni degli schemi cognitivi in corso di trattamenti farmacologici]

The way to experience feelings, emotions, to express them, the particular kind of being, behaving, the meanings we attribute to ourselves, to others and to events, the importance given to situations and the way of facing them, are expressions that characterize ourselves and allow us to be distinct. In the tradition of cognitive psychology the subject isn't passive in receiving environmental imputes, but he has mental structures that direct him in the information choice and in the meaning attribution. To these structures has been given the name of cognitive scheme. The «psychological» nature of these cognitive patterns seems to exclude the possibility of a change by psychopharmacological treatment. The clinical experience suggests that psychotropic drugs are able to change these dimensions traditionally considered more «psychological», often subverting the usual behaviour patterns, and not only the symptomatology of the disorder. In literature only few studies concerning the connection between these mental structure and the psychopharmacological treatment exist.