Results
5.1. Description of the data
On average, each participant received 100 weekly assessments during the course of the study (overall completion rate 77%).
5.1.1. Adherence to exploration phase protocol
Therapists completed a session-report after each session, recording the types of techniques that were used during the session to assess treatment adherence. These exploration phase session reports suggested good adherence to the exploration phase protocol: The most commonly used exploration phase strategies were not aimed to change underlying symptoms or schemas and included techniques for schema-mode identification (23%), explaining the schema-therapy model and rationale (20%) and use of techniques to build the therapeutic relationship (19%). On average, 7% of the reported techniques used during the exploration phase were intervention techniques, directed towards changing schemas or resolving current problems, such as reparenting or imagery rescripting. Note that the percentage of intervention techniques used during the exploration phase reported here is conservative and potentially an overestimation as the session report checklist only had an option to indicate use of imagery-rescripting (intervention technique) but no option to indicate use of diagnostic-imagery (explorative technique). In some instances therapists crossed out the word ‘rescripting’ but in other instances it was unclear whether diagnostic-imagery or imagery-rescripting was used and in these instances use of imagery during the exploration phase was coded as use of an intervention technique.