What are non drug ways to treat delusions?

[DNA]

CBT, exposure therapy and regular visits to a psychologist comes to mind.

[timtak]

Drugs are probably essential as a start but also, from Google Scholar using “non-drug” treatment schizophrenia

1. relatives’ counseling to reduce schizophrenic relapse
   I.e. it may in part be close relatives that trigger so counseling them and changing their behaviour might help reduce delusions.
2. Cognitive behaviour therapy, which in my limited educational experience means generally teaching people that symptoms are the product of brain chemical imbalances not being on TV etc.
3. There is quite a lot of research on Expressed Emotion both by schizophrenics and their families but the results seem inconclusive at best.
4. Some relief is claimed of 1 Hz magnetic stimulation of the left side
   of the brain using a device called a Magstim made by a company in
   Wales. My guess is that like humming, it gets in the way of voice
   production. It is also used to treat depression. A course of TMS costs thousands but the Magstim machines cost about 1000 usd on ebay. There is a cheap one from China (aliexpress) for 160 USD or thereabouts (searching for “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation”) but it may not go down to 1Hz. There is a video on YouTube and one commentator describes it as “harsh,” though much less harsh than electroconvulsive therapy which that YouTube video compares it to.
5. Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT) or Body Psychotherapy (BPT) are sometimes claimed to be effective against negative symptoms of schizophrenia, particularly disembodiment. I knew a Japanese guy that felt disembodied and recommend he try dancing (to Bowie) in front of a mirror, which he said helped but only for a short space of time. There are several videos about dance and movement therapy.

[timtak]

But what I am interested in is something new, along the lines of para-cognitive therapy, drawing attention to cognitions that are correct but felt to be really weird and disturbing because they are different to that which normies usually feel.

For example, there are scientists that argue that our will, the normie voice of consciousness in our brain, is felt to be causal because it comes before actions, when in fact both it and the action are caused by a preceding unconscious mental event.

For example when asked to press either a left or right button, FMRI brain activity that predicts the button will be pressed, is found to precede the “will” of “left” and “right” even though normies incorrectly believe their will to be causal.

Now consider the case when the choice is between two bowls of fruit, apples and oranges. Presumably something about the fruit, its colours, juiciness and attractiveness, triggers some unconscious mental decision, which in turn triggers the will “apple” (or “organge”) which causes the action. So in a sense, though normies are complete unaware of it, the apple causes the movement more than the pos-hoc (after the event) willing “apple.”

When someone who is schizophrenic feels that others are reading or controlling their thoughts, this is partly because they deluding themselves into believing in some apparatus that others have implanted in their brain. This is a delusion. But it also may be partly because schizophrenics are in part right. The unconscious events that cause thoughts are triggered by the words, looks, expressions, of those around us, and are not (as normies incorrectly believe) at the start of the causal chain.

There are other things like this – e.g. in the area of simulation delusion – that contain some truth, and in someways more truth than imho normies are aware of. Attempts to un-see these para-cognitive truths may make the experience of the delusions worse than they would be if they were in part accepted.

Bibliography
Soon, C.S., Brass, M., Heinze, H.J., and Haynes, J.-D. (2008a). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience 11: 543.
Soon, C.S., Brass, M., Heinze, H.J., and Haynes, J.-D. (2008b). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Suppl. Information. Nature Neuroscience 11, Suppl.