Schizophrenia and related mental illnesses can have a devastating effect on people who suffer from them, often making it impossible for them to work or maintain normal social relationships. Antipsychotic drugs are usually the first line of defense, but they can have serious side effects. A new study concludes that psychological approaches could be an alternative for patients who either can’t or won’t take medication, although some critics continue to question the effectiveness of these interventions.
Schizophrenia, which can involve hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, emotional problems, and severe difficulty focusing on daily tasks, affects about 1% of populations worldwide. More than 20 antipsychotic medications, such as risperidone, haloperidol, and clozapine, are now on the market, and they are often effective in temporarily relieving the worse symptoms. But when taken for extended periods, such drugs can cause uncontrollable muscle movements, serious weight gain, and higher risk of heart attacks. In recent years, a number of psychiatrists and psychologists have begun to advocate psychological approaches, including an approach called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), as an adjunct to antipsychotic drugs.
With CBT, which has long been shown to be effective for depression and anxiety disorders, a therapist takes the subject through a series of guided steps designed to explore alternative interpretations and explanations of what he or she is experiencing, with the goal of changing both outlook and behavior. A schizophrenic patient who is having hallucinations might be encouraged to stop trying to fight them off or suppress them, for example, or to stop engaging with voices in his or her head, to test how strong such symptoms really are and how much control they exert over the subject’s life. The technique also involves what practitioners call “normalization”: The patient might be reassured that hearing voices and seeing things that are not there is an experience that many normal people have from time to time, thus reducing some of the anxiety that makes sufferers feel distressed and isolated.
Important note:
“The authors caution that despite what they see as encouraging results, the findings should not be interpreted to mean that all patients suffering from schizophrenia can or should go off their meds; the two groups they studied were comparatively high-functioning patients who were not hospitalized and posed no danger to themselves or their communities. Nevertheless, Morrison says, other studies have shown that up to 50% of schizophrenia sufferers fail to take drugs over the long term, and that this figure can rise to more than 70% over any particular 18-month period. “It seems that offering people choices” about whether to take drugs or not “is a sensible thing to do,” he says.”
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