Paths of resolution

Health and Recovery
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I have been taking medication since 2002, following 9/11 and psychic\spiritual issues that arose before, during, and after that event. Since 2010 I have been doing two things: 1) Analyzing what caused my psychotic break(s) 2) What is psychosis? 3) How to resolve my psychosis.

It is very clear from the following books, that chronic psychosis and a diagnosis of schizophrenia is resolvable.

  1. Dante’s Cure: Daniel Dorman, MD.
  2. Rethinking Madness: Paris Williams
  3. Soteria: Mosher (et all)
  4. I never promised you a rose garden: Joanne Greenberg

The above is just a sampling of many, many stories of full resolution. Not only did the people in these books have the diagnosis of Schizophrenia when they came into contact with psychiatry, often the prognosis was very grave, that they would not recover and would have to be on medication for life and in some cases in the hospital for long periods. Despite that prognosis they were able to resolve their psychosis even without medication and go on to have fulfilling lives.

In those books are the answers, especially in “Soteria” and “Rethinking Madness”. Those two books outline approaches for resolution. If a person with chronic psychosis can interact in a forum like this or one-on-one with a person in a decent setting than it is possible for that person to resolve their chronic psychosis, whether it comes in the form of Schizophrenia or any other label.

The problems that face us are two fold: 1) The availability of such therapies 2) Whether such therapies are covered by insurance or government health care. Those with money and desire can up root and re-locate to where these therapies are available, but the vast majority of us are not rich and can not afford to relocate.

It is possible to incorporate some techniques on one’s own and with the help of a talk therapist make so in roads towards resolution. It is important to find a therapist that is amendable and open and willing to take your experience as valuable and meaningful. Recommend either “Soteria” or “Rethinking Madness” to them, read them yourself, if you can, to understand what the methods are and attempt to make it a part of your recovery.

Three schools of thought in regards of talk therapy which have a good track record of resolving psychosis are: 1) Existential 2) Trans-personal 3) Cognitive\behavioral. Often a psychologist will be trained in several different schools and will use a blend, but I have found through my research that those three schools of thought have the best outcomes. There are therapists that employ these techniques who give lectures and have written books on the subject. These therapists are: 1) Bertrann Karon 2) Dr. Peter Breggin 3) Daniel Knafo 4) Rufus May 5) Paris Williams 6) Stan Groff (and his wife) 7) Dr. Daniel Dorman. You can find their books at Amazon and their lectures and interviews on YouTube.

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Do you rely on these techniques rather than medicating?

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I was in Soteria in San Jose in 1980-81. It did not help me at all. They have statistics saying Soteria was successful but other people have statistics saying it wasn’t. I read the book too. From what I know, a certain percentage of schizophrenics will recover without medication WHEREVER they are. Other people need medication. One question: can anyone really say that medication does not help some people? Can anyone make a valid case that medication is useless? Sure side-effects are not good, and unbearable for certain people, but can anyone really deny that medication helps people? Ask the people who were non compliant with medication for years after being diagnosed and suffered with the full force of this illness and were in and out of hospitals and on the streets and in shelters. But then they finally started taking medication and their lives turned around. We have examples of this on these forums.Or the people who never reach the point and get that they need medication and NEVER get better. It boils down to this: some people will get better without medication. Some people will get better with medication. Medication doesn’t help everybody but you can’t say it helps NOBODY. Footnote: Soterias main tenet was treatment without medication. But when I was there (and Mosher will freely admit this) they still kept medication in an upstairs closet for certain clients in emergencies and any crisis that came up.

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I am a huge fan of CBT and therapy… I feel it’s helped me a lot these past few years… Now that I’m willing to do the work.

Therapy as well as my meds?.. that to me is a winning combo.

I do feel that I’m doing better then I ever have because I’m not living in the “either / or” world any more…

I’m med compliant and I go to therapy.

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I have been titrating my medication over the course of 2 years along with deep talk therapy of the kind I mentioned in my original post. I had one set back do to a very stressful move across country which really upset the whole process and had to up my dose do to stressfull move. But alll in all I have been able to encounter my psychosis and resolve it in stages. Its like unraveling a knot from what I have discovered for myself. But it is working.

Nick77;

You and I have discused soteria before on this board. Most of the problems of Original Soteria, mosher later realized were due to substance use by the “paitents” and staff (Marijuna, alcohol and other ilicit drugs) in the homes. But the results of the experiment show the same out comes for most people that were in the homes for 3 months as those who took medication.

In vermont and england there are soteria projects going that do not allow substance use in the homes and though it is stil to early to tell, they are having some success in resolving peoples psychosis.

In Regard to you citing that people can recover without medication WHERE EVER THEY ARE, that is simply not true. Environments that are stressfull, such as the street, abusive home, and prison environments can prolong and even deepn psychosis for people.

People do recover with out any psychiatric intervention (as some cases are outlined in the book RETHINKING MADDNESS by paris williams) and these people typically have open dialogue with people in their circles (be it family or freinds) that are accepting and do not over react to precieved “bad behavior” or “bad speech” but are more accpeting , tolerant, and non-judgemental (which is actually the goal of any therapist).

Soteria can be that environment for people and it was a lot better than institutionization in hosptial back when that was stil vogue in those days of the original experiments.

IN CONCLUSION

The human race has dealt with psychosis probably since we fell out of the trees and encountered plants, substances, and experiences which would trigger psychosis. In many way the new research and methods are humane and more wholistic, atteding not just to the biological processes (or deadening them) that sustain psychosis, but also to the psyche itself where in the real issue arises in the first place. Medication does have its place and that is why I am sure you are correct that pills were kept in the kitchen cabinet at the soteria houses, but they never had to be used to my knowledge there and people did recover because of the projects (and others).

I am not telling people to go off medication, I think that is a stupid thing to do and all to often it is done WITHOUT help and people crash and burn or die.

What I am doing in this post is lifting the veil and revealing that YES it is totally possible to truely recover from psychosis and schizophrenia. I encourage everyone here to read these books and do their own research and to never give up the hope of resolution. It is possible and it is not a fluke like these people weren’t sick in the first place or some sort cultish irrational dislike for medication. I know people here need hope, I did, and I have found it and I am sharing it.

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I love your post; I think that it is important to have several chances or options for recovering; it is very important to have hope in our recovery so I think you give us reliable elements that this is possible.
Thanks mister_lister.
Tolteca

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i don’t do meds so i find your post interesting, and backs up what i have been trying to do, so i can heal.
cbt has helped me heaps and my psychosis has diminished …that could be just be coincidental i guess i will find out ?
also being on this forum has helped me heaps, i have learnt to comunicate with others, maybe not very well but hey i’m trying !
since cbt.my sypmtoms paranoia, ptsd…etc…have lessened considerably.
the ’ pure ’ sz side of me seems the same, but hey i am stoked with the progress so far.
good post .
take care

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Yes the world health organization did a study in 1979 which showed that people with mentally illness recovered at higher rates in developing countriers than those in developed countries. A second follow up study found the same. However, the drug company Eli Lilly did their own study recently and of course it found the opposite (kinda like tobacco company studies about cigarette smoking that came out during the litigous years of cigarettes and cancer).

You will not find the studies on line don’t bother checking. They have all been taken down. My old links go to dead pages.

Drugs are the most prevelent form of treatment for schizophrenia and have been for nearly 3 decades. Though I am on l low dose, I find them useful when things get really stressful, but in general (in my opinion) they are over perscribed and usually at dosages which ensure side effects.

I had high cholesteral, blury vision, and occasional high blood pressure for 8 years when I was on the recommended dosage of my AP. All of that disappeared when I went do to a third over two years, with no change in diet.

Meds are useful in a lot of ways, but better outcomes can be found with a solid talk therapy. I did not mention Dialectical behavior therapy, but It i a great tool for me in talk therapy but I have not been able to obtain a therapist that is trained in it where I am now.

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Yes, at first they let us smoke pot and drink beer. They frowned upon it but they looked the other way as long a it was confined to my room with three- man parties. Later they cracked down and did not allow it but we snuck it in anyway. It was co-ed and sex between clients was rampant.I don’t know if sex altered anybodies recovery. I was new to schizophrenia and I saw some extremely bizarre behaviur over the course of a year including the behaviur of the counselors.Two 40 year old women counselors who were friends later each moved ex-clients into their homes to live with just the two of them in each of their houses. But yeah, bizarre behaviour.The 35 year old guy who sat in a chair in the corner of the living room every day who didn’t take a shower for literally six months. He sat in the hair with his hands down his pants raving about cops and jail and making “shooting noises”. He occasionally walked into the kitchen and grabbed cold cereal straight from the box with his nasty hands or tore chunks off of a 4 lb. block of cheese without washing his hands. Or the guy who stayed in his room for 5 months.I never saw him eat so he had to have been coming out to eat just at night. Or the guy who barely talked for 4 months.All he would say to ANYBODY is, “Hi.How are you”. Nothing else. But everybody thought that was fumy and we all imitated him and said, “Hi, how are you” to each other at various times of the day. Incidentally he was the only client I lived with for that year who actually got so bad mentally that they gave him emergency medication. He had a major crisis. Or a couple girls who slept around. Or the 30 year old girl who was afraid to leave the house. She had a car for 4 months that was parked on the front lawn but she never drove it. And much, much more. It begs the question: would meds have helped these people who were in obvious pain for months? If the choice is: radical symptoms for half a year with no meds; but ultimate recovery. Or meds that ease the symptoms and eventual recovery? Yeah, I guess we went over this before but I think my time there was useless and I suffered, unbelievably, indescribably badly. And there were lots of other poor souls who were twice as sick as me. Does the means justify the ends?

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77nick77

You would have found the same exact conditions in a hospital at that time and even today, with or without medication. The difference is that those who could recover were given a chance to. Like I said I have no problem with medication when it is used properly.

When I frequented this board in the past, I encountered tons of posts of people who were simply over medicated, post by lots of people. Often these people would be on many anti-psychotics, some at over dose levels with barely any recovery that was noticeable. So it goes both ways and I ask you the questions does the ends justify the means?

You have focused on one aspect of what I have written about, Soteria because you claim to have been there. You also admit that you used illicit and illegal drugs while there, so what do you expect in your recovery at that point, to be takening mind altering chemicals?

There is plenty of proof that people recover completely, I only gave you a sample of the literature and doctors that do the treatements and the type of treatments. Yet you focus on your experience at Soteria as the bench mark. Hey man if you want to do what you are doing fine, all the power to you.

I am not interested in taking medication for the rest of my life and when I find information that veriffiable (as I have submited) then I am going to share, I don’t care if you whine about it, delete my posts, or edit my posts, or ban me. The truth is out there and it is not going to go away. All these sort of reactions proove to me is that there is HUGE resistance and makes me even more determined to share what I know.

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I focused on Soteria because I had first-hand knowledge of it. You cover a broader spectrum of facts than I do. I am certainly not opposed to alternative treatments.Or NO treatments. Or “talk only” treatments. If someone PROVES they work for a large segment of people for MANY years. The problem is that some newer alternative treatments work for a few people but are touted and pushed as “cures” or effective treatments across the board for everybody .Lobotomies worked for some people. So did inducing diabetic comas. But they were pushed onto MANY people with dire results. Those are extreme examples, I know. I have often said that medication works for some people. Other people it doesn’t. I think the juries out on what constitutes a “complete” recovery and whether that is possible. From what I’ve read, VERY few people gain back the degree of functioning that they had before they got sick.It is my understanding that there is no known cure for schizophrenia. I don’t think they use the 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3 model they were using just several years ago. I will admit I probably won’t read any of those other books, I MIGHT, but I doubt it. I limit myself to reading articles like what firemonkey or Sz. admin posts or doing research on my own. But don’t you think I would like you to be right? I would. I want a cure and I want to recover a 100% from schizophrenia just like EVERYBODY. If something new works, I’m all for it. i don’t have a blind, blanket, objection to new treatments. Just a healthy skepticism. Can people recover without medication? I have heard it is so.

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I would add Anatomy of an Epidemic to the list. Fascinating read. And I just saw a documentary on YouTube titled Take These Broken Wings. Also good stuff — for those who don’t have time to read the literature.

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77nick77

I am not running around touting miracle cures and I am not anti-psychiatry or anti-medication. What I am saying is that total recovery, not just going back to the way which made a person sick, but transcending the sickness and going on to have a happy and productive life IS POSSIBLE and people that were in real bad shape were able to do it.

Now of course, someone that has problems other than schizophrenia (such as severe retardation) or an addiction problem may not be able to recover. But as the literature and testimonials from many, many people indicate there is such thing as breaking the 3rds barrier.

Far to often a diagnosis of schizophrenia comes with a prognosis that becomes self fulfilled prophecy. The idea that a schizophrenic must take chemicals for the rest of their life is simply not the facts. The facts are that people can and do recover with the right help, with OR Without medication.

Far too often schizophrenics are warehoused in their community in poverty and getting state sanctioned “treatment” that does very little in changing that circumstance. What happens in those conditions is that people give up on ever recoverying and with that surrenderer comes even further debilitation (substance abuse, worsening symptoms, ever more declining prognosises).

That cycle has to stop.

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