costello: the people I have in my life right now don't agree with my decision to ignore medical advice unless and until my son decides to go the medication route.
You were ignoring medical advice...?
The studies in this link... all done by doctors:
Risks Associated With Medication
The studies in this link... also done by doctors:
Medications and Relapse Rates
These studies
-- Schizophrenia & Recovery -- also carried out by doctors.
These four accounts...
Quote:
At 2 years post-admission, Soteria treated subjects were working at significantly higher occupational levels, were significantly more often living independently or with peers, and had fewer readmissions; 571/16 had never received a single dose of neuroleptic medication during the entire 2-year study period.
Source: http://spiritualrecoveries.blogspot.com/2006/05/dr-loren-mosher-soteria-house.html
"...85% of our clients (all diagnosed as severely schizophrenic) at the Diabasis center not only improved, with no medications, but most went on growing after leaving us."
Source: http://spiritualrecoveries.blogspot.com/2006/05/dr-john-weir-perry-diabasis.html
Among those who went through the OPT program, incidence of schizophrenia declined substantially, with 85% of the patients returning to active employment and 80% without any psychotic symptoms after five years. All this took place in a research project wherein only about one third of clients received neuroleptic medication.
Source: http://spiritualrecoveries.blogspot.com/2006/05/dr-jaakko-seikkula-dialogue-is-change.html
... here's what we found: the best outcome occurred in those people who got psychoanalytic therapy without medication at all. We used psychological tests, we used a clinical status interview conducted by a very experienced psychiatrist who did not know what kind of treatment the patient received. The patients were examined before treatment, after six months, after 12 months and after 20 months of treatment. And then we did a follow up for medication after two years. The best results were obtained with those people who got just psychoanalytic therapy.
The next best results, which were nearly as good, was where medication was used as an adjunct but it was withdrawn as rapidly as the patient could tolerate. The experienced therapist who combined medication with therapy was honest. He told the patients, 'The medication doesn't cure anything. It makes things tolerable so we can talk. But the only thing that will cure you is your understanding.' And he withdrew the medication as quickly as the patients could tolerate and that turned out to be a good way to work.
Source: http://spiritualrecoveries.blogspot....-recovery.html
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All doctors.
Daniel Fisher, once a diagnosed schizophrenic, now a psychiatrist. Does not make use of medications.
David Lukoff, experienced a six month psychotic episode. Now a psychologist, does not make use of medications.
Frederick Freese and Patricia Deegan, both diagnosed as schizophrenic. One is a psychiatrist, the other a psychologist. Both utilize medications on an as-needed basis in accordance with their personal preference and choice.
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The issue of medications is a complex subject costello. I know people who are recovering with medications and without medications. The ones who make use of them do so for only one reason; they find them to be helpful. I am not opposed to making use of any tool an individual self-identifies as helpful.
I don't believe making use of meds is anything people should have to feel ashamed of. In many ways, they bring their own particular brand of difficulty but it may be a difficulty the individual feels they can more easily cope with or would prefer as opposed to the difficulties of not using meds.
Some of them, like Frederick Freese and Patricia Deegan, only use them for the situations they find most challenging, and count on times of relative calm and learned coping skills to close the gap in between.
There are other people who do not find medications to be helpful. Some of them once did but later made a successful withdrawal. Some of them found them helpful but had to change medications or stop using them entirely as a result of the side-effects. Some of them found the side-effects to be too great or possibly even life threatening and made the choice to stop using them as a result. Some of them found them to be terribly harmful from the very start. Some of them stopped using them because they couldn't afford them. And for some people, medications were never an option to begin with. People use meds for only one valid reason but they will stop using them for
several valid reasons.
There is plenty of medical evidence to support you in your efforts costello. What you are doing is going against common practice. If common practice helps someone and they identify it as beneficial, that's good. But common practice doesn't help a lot of people. Whether you are aiming for your own best recovery or trying to assist someone else through theirs, the only treatments we need to be concerned with are the ones that work for that particular individual.
Many people think of medication as being the only treatment and this is part of the reason they are aghast when people choose to not use it. To them, they think that's the equivalent of doing nothing at all, when really, it's only a indication of their own narrow definition. For my part, I try to encourage people to make use of everything that helps them. Those things, whatever they are, go into their personal support toolbox.
In your son's case, common practice was not working for him. That means you try something else. There is no guarantee that will work either but in the process of trying on these different approaches and different forms of treatment, many people can begin to both expand their view of what support and treatment can be and also begin to refine their own personal recovery and the tools they identify as helpful to them on that path.
~ Namaste
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