AppinIsobel: Not all recover with this the non medication approach you have posted many times here since 2007.

AppinIsobel -- did you click through and read the studies and personal stories of recovery via those links? I've got a feeling your answer is no.

Meantime, it is true that the three treatment approaches I recommend most used minimal or no medication. However, they also managed to produce a recovery rate in the range of 85% and I think others might find the approach beneficial.

- Jaakko Seikkula - Open Dialogue Treatment
- John Weir Perry - Diabasis
- Loren Mosher - Soteria House

It's further true that the World Health Organization has found, in three international studies spanning decades, that the highest rates of recovery were found in non-industrialized countries. In those nations, hospitalization and long-term medication is simply not an option for most people -- it's far too expensive -- and yet they also enjoy a higher rate of recovery than most in the West.

- Recovery From Schizophrenia: An International Perspective. A Report From the WHO Collaborative Project, the International Study of Schizophrenia

[See also: Long Term Studies]

The jury is still out as to why people in poorer nations with fewer treatment options would have higher rates of recovery but a more recent study may shed some light. It was found that when individuals in those cultures/nations did use medications as they are used in the West, the third-world advantage vanished -- that is to say, the recovery rates then matched the poorer rates seen in the West.

- A Schizophrenia Mystery Solved

Of course none of that has anything to do with whether or not an individual in this culture personally finds medication to be helpful or not.

I know people who are recovering with medications and people who are recovering without medications. The Voices of Recovery blog features stories from both camps. The most effective treatment is the one that works for that particular person.

My own recovery came about without medication. As a result, that's tended to be where I invested my research efforts and also, what I tend to share with others. Naturally, others are free to share from their own experience as well.

Enjoy your evening AppinIsobel.