[blackwhitered]

So atm I am only seeing a psychiatrist, not a therapist, for my schizophrenia...

I have heard contradictory things about whether therapy can be helpful or effective in the treatment of schizophrenia...

Some say only drugs will help and therapy (especially things like CBT and DBT) does nothing. Others say drugs don't really help and therapy is the "cure".

Just wondering if anyone has either hard evidence on or personal experience with therapy for schizophrenia?

[Rand.]

I'm actually pretty curious about this as well. I've been signed up for DBT which is a half year to a year long program. I can't help but wonder if it's really going to do anything for me.

[Sometimes psychotic]

I had cbt for psychosis and it got rid of residual symptoms that the meds could not block...there are only a couple of places in the states that offer this because it's still considered experimental. In addition we dealt with my social anxiety which was the main trigger for my break so now I think differently when interacting with other people and it keeps me from stressing out. I don't think it would work instead of meds because you have to be able to think rationally for it to work but in my case it got me to a place where I no longer needed the meds. Current meta-analysis says it doesn't work but individual trials suggest it does even in the absence of meds. I think if you get the right therapist it does work but so far as I can tell there are a lot of people who never should have gone into psychology and they seem to act as monitors for people with psychosis rather than actually treating them. In this country they basically learn that the only approach is meds...my T was trained in Germany and worked with a select group of psychiatrists who believe in cbt for psychosis although it is only available as part of a clinical trial right now.

Here is one resource for people training in psychological approaches to psychosis....

Welcome to ISPS

I don't know how many US members there are but they might be able to help you find a psychologist who believes psychosis can be treated...

[punkybrewster6k]

We tried T for Bean but she could not hold the information to do CBT. Im guessing because of psychosis.

T said there really was no benefit of her seeing her. She was very nice about it though. A very nice T who helped us find resources she may be able to use.

I guess It all depends on the person really. If you have insurance to try, It would not hurt to see if it helps you. You will never know unless you do it.

[blackwhitered]

Originally Posted by punkybrewster6k

We tried T for Bean but she could not hold the information to do CBT. Im guessing because of psychosis.

T said there really was no benefit of her seeing her. She was very nice about it though. A very nice T who helped us find resources she may be able to use.

I guess It all depends on the person really. If you have insurance to try, It would not hurt to see if it helps you. You will never know unless you do it.

I have done therapy, briefly, for my ED and some for coping with my hallucinations and delusions which helped, but didn't really get rid of them...

Sometimespsychotic, is the therapy that's specifically geared toward schizophrenia shown to be effective even if standard therapy isn't?
Sorry I'm asking, I just think you're more informed than I am, and I trust your judgment.

Originally Posted by blackwhitered

So atm I am only seeing a psychiatrist, not a therapist, for my schizophrenia...

I have heard contradictory things about whether therapy can be helpful or effective in the treatment of schizophrenia...

Some say only drugs will help and therapy (especially things like CBT and DBT) does nothing. Others say drugs don't really help and therapy is the "cure".

Just wondering if anyone has either hard evidence on or personal experience with therapy for schizophrenia?

It depends. If you use therapy just to talk about your day i think its fine. Or use it to talk about practical steps you can take to make your life easier , then fair enough. But using therapy to get to the cause of you sz then i think it does not help. Because this is when you get someone elses philosophy of life dictating how you feel about yourself. There are many therapists that believe in all kinds of spirituality or psuedo science and you dont want to adapt to their point of view necessarily. At the end of the day its all just opinion , and everyone is in the business of giving theirs. I think cbt is fine , because its very practical , at least it should be.

Examples of what i would consider potentially harmful is using freudian theory to analyse the root cause of sz. I think freud himself thought that many of his theories could not be applied to sz. But some people use it. Regardless , sz aside , Much of Freudian theory for example is viewed as psuedo science by most of the scientific fraternity.

Generally using psychological theory for example self actualisation . theory , i believe to be harmful.

12 step ideology, and all the spiritual theories, i dont think are helpful.

Then there are the recovered sz. Who believe all sorts of things eg the lady that listens to her voices. She maintains it cured her , i think its harmful. Google it.

[Minionkitty]

I have Schizoaffective, which is still a form of psychosis, so I thought I'd reply.. I lived in what my hospital records call a voluntary mental health treatment facility for 2 years... I thought it was a group home... But in that time I had a therapist, who they called a "mental health clinician" named Chris. After I was diagnosed with Schizoaffective, she said she found it hard to help me. She said that she only really did therapy for depression, Borderline PD, eating disorders, stuff like that. But I guess that doesn't mean you can't get therapy for it.. She just couldn't do it. She said that she didn't know how to reach someone with psychosis through therapy, and that my meds were much more important.

[junkDNA]

im in therapy. my psychosis is trauma based though. so we work on trauma. processing it and stuff. my voices come from past trauma we've figured out. thats why i have a psychotic d/o NOS diagnosis. i dont know what kind fo therapy i get. we just talk about whatever i want to bring up. and he guides me through it.

[Victoria'smom]

I don't know if you mind me answering. I think therapy has really helped me but my therapist is a crisis therapist. I know there are some therapists that say they deal with psychosis.

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by blackwhitered

I have done therapy, briefly, for my ED and some for coping with my hallucinations and delusions which helped, but didn't really get rid of them...

Sometimespsychotic, is the therapy that's specifically geared toward schizophrenia shown to be effective even if standard therapy isn't?
Sorry I'm asking, I just think you're more informed than I am, and I trust your judgment.

To my knowledge cbt is the only therapy that's been shown to have any impact at all on psychosis and it's part of the standard of care for first episode psychosis in the UK in specialized treatment centers. So the study I was part of is comparing cbt specifically to psychoeducation they are actually looking at the impact of cbt not on symptoms but medication adherence. In the US the only talking treatment(not therapy) that's routinely accepted is psychoeducation ie learning about your illness and the medical model. I was lucky enough to end up in the cbt wing of the trial because I can learn a lot more on my own about how the drugs and the illness itself. But yes therapy geared toward psychosis specifically cbt has been shown to work with or without meds and also to prevent onset of psychosis in teens at high risk.

[punkybrewster6k]

Originally Posted by Sometimes psychotic

To my knowledge cbt is the only therapy that's been shown to have any impact at all on psychosis and it's part of the standard of care for first episode psychosis in the UK in specialized treatment centers. So the study I was part of is comparing cbt specifically to psychoeducation they are actually looking at the impact of cbt not on symptoms but medication adherence. In the US the only talking treatment(not therapy) that's routinely accepted is psychoeducation ie learning about your illness and the medical model. I was lucky enough to end up in the cbt wing of the trial because I can learn a lot more on my own about how the drugs and the illness itself. But yes therapy geared toward psychosis specifically cbt has been shown to work with or without meds and also to prevent onset of psychosis in teens at high risk.

This is curious to me.
Bean cannot hold the information long enought to remember what she is taught for coping.
By the time We recognize that she should use these skills, and.try to remind her of them, its too late for her to stop amd think.

I wonder if the autism spectrum makes this harder to do. Oh well, we just keep trying and hope one day it will 'click'.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by punkybrewster6k

This is curious to me.
Bean cannot hold the information long enought to remember what she is taught for coping.
By the time We recognize that she should use these skills, and.try to remind her of them, its too late for her to stop amd think.

I wonder if the autism spectrum makes this harder to do. Oh well, we just keep trying and hope one day it will 'click'.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2

It's possible---but I'm also not sure that she got it soon enough because in the UK there is basically a time limit I think its like 3 years from your first symptoms and generally they want you to have meds with it. The effectiveness rate is roughly comparable to meds so you know that means that it doesn't work at all for some of people. It's definitely not a one size fits all thing but given that its not remotely harmful I think everyone should have a chance at it to see if it works. I wonder if she would have a better chance learning the skills once she's stabilized on clozapine.

[punkybrewster6k]

Yea. My thoughts also.
With her head clear for the first time that we can remember, it may be worth trying again.
As long as they dont mention "coping skill".

Ha. That word drives her mad. She hates it because she could not grasp the concept.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2

[ickydog2006]

I'm really struggling with this right now. I feel that therapy has helped me a lot in the general coping with life. It also gives me someone to form a bond with and trust, since I can't always trust my own thoughts and feelings. It also gives me an outside perspective on how I'm doing and if it looks like I'm sliding, or if more meds might be needed, and also forces me to recognize when I start isolating, or quit sleeping much, or quit showering etc. But sometimes I get really upset by the thought of therapy. I feel like in the end it's never going to get me better so why bother. Then I try to focus on quality of life being more important then being healed or fixed or whatever.

[ThatsMe1981]

Hi:

I have schizophrenia and I underwent CBT therapy with a certified CBT therapist. Now, in searching for a therapist you have to get someone who is certified CBT and you can find them on the website the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. Some people say they practice CBT but have not been certified and a lot of the times they don't know what they are doing.

Currently, I don't feel paranoid, delusional or hallucinate. I would say a combination of the right meds and CBT treatment has helped. What CBT will do is give you coping skills to rationally walk away from the positive symptoms. So, for example my therapist helped me early on make the distinction with possible and probable. This may seem minor but anything and everything is possible and to the paranoid mind if something is possible then it is automatically certain. When in reality very few things are probable. Sure it is possible Earth will be smashed by meteor tomorrow but it is highly improbable. This helped a lot with the paranoia. Another tool he showed me was reality checking. How to test my thoughts with reality in a way that is safe and productive. For example, I have telepathy and believe I can communicate with a childhood friend telepathically. Instead of holding onto that belief reality check it i.e. ask your friend. Another tool he gave me was minimizing, maximizing. So in a paranoid state I may be hypervigilant to the number of people wearing red shirts so when I see someone with a red shirt I'll maximize the importance and frequency and minimize the occurrence of people actually not wearing red shirts. There are more tools then this but that is what CBT therapy is like.

[The_little_didgee]

Originally Posted by punkybrewster6k

This is curious to me.
Bean cannot hold the information long enought to remember what she is taught for coping.
By the time We recognize that she should use these skills, and.try to remind her of them, its too late for her to stop amd think.

I wonder if the autism spectrum makes this harder to do. Oh well, we just keep trying and hope one day it will 'click'.

This is my experience:

I went to therapy for my ASD. It helped improve my communication skills and understand why people don't respond to me. Unfortunately, it didn't do much else.

Autism spectrum disorder makes therapy harder, because of the way we think. Communication is hard for us to understand. We tend to interpret things literally and have trouble with perspective thinking. A lot of us don't understand emotions very well which can make us poor at introspection. All these traits can definitely impede therapy.

The skills we do learn take effort. We have to remember to look at people, show interest in them and so on, because these skills are not innate. Old habits can easily return.

Auditory processing disorder, which is common in ASD, can also interfere. Usually, I can't remember the discussion because most of it doesn't register. I hear it, but cannot comprehend it. When asked to repeat it, I can't.
-----

I think people with psychotic disorders can benefit from therapy, especially if it is for social skills and coping. I'm not a proponent for psychoanalytic type therapies, but some people find them helpful to understand their illness.

A psychiatrist told me therapy isn't always indicated. It depends on personality, intelligence, illness, and cognitive style. She told me that I would not benefit from psychodynamic therapy. I concurred, because it never ever worked in the past even for my depressions.

The last psychiatrist, I saw, provided therapy to people with psychotic disorders.

In my country, they say psychosis is often triggered by stress and therapy is thus focused on reducing and managing stress.