Full recovery without meds is much more common then with them.

Paris Williams, PhD, works as a psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Saybrook University. He offers the rare perspective of someone who has experienced psychosis from both sides -- as a researcher and psychologist.

I suggest reading his very revealing, and eye-opening article here..

Full Recovery from Schizophrenia? | Brain Blogger

Very interesting.

Serloco , i have actually talked to Paris , via mail. And he is a nice guy. But Paris said he achieved recovery in 2 years , and went back to college to study clinical psychology and is educated , as you have said to phd level. Now , have you any idea the level of mental acquity , that professional psychology requires. Look at college material or if you wish you can read his thesis or excerpts from his book or some of his comments. He is an intellectually savy guy , and actually has a deep interest in philosopy. If you read his stuff. You'll see.

Now i look to many sz sufferers and his profile does not fit with what i consider is the sz profile. He would probablly argue that this is because the general scientific paradigm is dominant. And i have put it to him that he was less sympthomatic and endured less severe sympthoms. And whats wrong with that? It makes sense that psychosis operates on a scale or spectrum. And some require meds and some do not. Paris presents that psychosis is some kind of uniform condition , and if he recovered without meds , then so can you. It would be truly inspirational, if this worked for everyone.

But there seems to be some level of truth that to resolve psychosis or to make it better , a character shift is required of sorts. I believe its not a radical transformation , just a subtle shift , like be a bit more positive , rely on wit and humour more, be more thick skinned, he conceptualises all this and basically says that psychosis is a defense mechanism that allows a sufferer to overcome otherwise unsurmountable problems. He calls alot of this existential crisis.

Also is it unreasonable to say that recovery is linked to prognosis. And prognosis being linked to symptoms?

Actually I study psychology too, as well as neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, and many other fields as well, and he is spot on is his advice to rethink madness, and to reform the disease and pathways that contribute to it. As I also have done and cured my schizophrenia as well. I have been helping people do this as he has, for awhile now. My posts in this forum that refer to this direct evidence can be found as well.

Besides his statistical evidence does not just come form his own case, but comes from the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Mental Health, and so covers cases all over the world, and therefor should not be considered incorrectly diagnosed nor involving only one type of mild form etc.

Here is some reading from the fields I mentioned for you.

Neuroplasticity: The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment. Understanding that the human brain can change through experience is the first step to improve memory function. It was once thought that the adult brain was a fixed entity, however it has been found that the brain is actually a highly flexible and plastic organ that changes based upon our experiences, emotions and behavior.

The finding that experience and training can lead to the development of new neural connections has key implications. For example, persons suffering from what was once thought to be permanent brain injury can heal through rehabilitation designed to stimulate the damaged area, such as in the case of stroke or other ailments.(Taub et al., 2006). At present, it has been demonstrated that psychotherapy can induce functional changes in brain activation. For example, a brain imaging study found that persons with obsessive-compulsive disorder who were treated with a mindfulness-oriented form of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) exhibited functional changes in the orbital frontal cortex and striatum, two brain structures found to be overactive in OCD (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). Other studies have demonstrated psychotherapy-related alterations in brain circuits involved in depression (e.g. Goldapple et al., 2004; Martin, Martin, Rai, Richardson, & Royall, 2001). CBT has also been associated with changes in frontal and temporal brain regions of persons suffering from panic disorder (Prasko et al., 2004).

The biopsychosocial perspective is a foundation of social work theory and practice. Recent research on neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomics lends compelling support to this perspective by elucidating mechanisms through which psychosocial forces shape neurobiology. Investigations of neuroplasticity demonstrate that the adult brain can continue to form novel neural connections and grow new neurons in response to learning or training even into old age. These findings are complemented by the contributions of psychosocial genomics, a field of scientific inquiry that explores the modulating effects of experience on gene expression. Findings from these new sciences provide external validation for the biopsychosocial perspective and offer important insights into the manifold means by which socioenvironmental experiences influence neurobiological structure and function across the life course.

Discovery of the growth of new neural tissue, or neurogenesis, in the adult human hippocampus, a brain region responsible for memory (Eriksson et al., 1998), the dogma of the “hardwired brain” was formally repudiated.

Mental practice also promotes neuroplasticity: neurogenesis can occur in the motor cortex just by imagining playing the piano (Pascual-Leone, Amedi, Fregni, & Merabet, 2005).

One area of research that has found significant evidence of mental training leading to neuroplastic modifications in brain activity focuses on the study of meditation. Meditation, while greatly varying in technique and purpose across the diverse spiritual and cultural traditions where it is employed, may be generally defined as the intentional practice whereby one grasps “the handle of cognition” to cultivate a competent use of his or her own mental capacities, gaining agency over thought and emotion (Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003). Such intentional mental training has been shown to induce functional neurobiological changes.

A study by Lutz and colleagues found marked alterations in the synchronization of neurons as an effect of long-term training in Buddhist loving-kindness meditation, a practice which is thought by some practitioners to promote a state of unconditional compassion and benevolence (Lutz, Greischar, Rawlings, Ricard, & Davidson, 2004). Neural synchrony of the type observed in this study may be indicative of coherent and integrated psychological functioning (Williams et al., 2005). The synchronization of brain activity found in some of the practitioners sampled, whose experience ranged between 10,000 and 50,000 hours spent in meditation, was higher than any previously reported in the literature. Such increased neural synchrony was observed not only during the meditative state, but also when the practitioners were not meditating, suggesting that long-term mental practice can induce lasting, trait-level changes possibly mediated by structural modifications to the brain (Begley, 2006).

Other research has documented changes in neurobiological function as a result of mindfulness meditation, the practice of cultivating a present-centered, metacognitive awareness, “a naturalistic state wherein consciousness transcends its content to rest upon the dynamics of its own processes” (Garland, 2007). A recent study bySlagter et al. (2007) compared attentional performance of a group of experienced meditators participating in a 3-month mindfulness meditation retreat to that of a novice control group who received a 1-hour meditation class and were asked to meditate 20 minutes daily for one week. Relative to controls, experienced meditators evidenced significant improvements in attentional performance that correlated with alterations in brain activity. This cognitive enhancement was maintained 3 months after formal meditation practice, providing suggestive evidence that mental training can stimulate neuroplastic changes in the adult human brain (Slagter et al., 2007).

While the work of Slagter et al. and Lutz et al. provide tentative support for meditation-induced neuroplasticity, neither study examined structural brain changes per se. However, two structural MRI investigations comparing the brains of experienced meditators to control subjects matched in sex, age, race, and years of education found that years of meditation experience correlated with increased cortical thickness in brain areas where visceral attention (e.g. right anterior insula) and self-awareness (e.g. left superior temporal gyrus) have been localized (Holzel et al., 2008; Lazar et al., 2005). These empirical investigations of meditation suggest that mental training may stimulate structural alterations reflective of neuroplasticity.

From the National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health.
Neuroplasticity, Psychosocial Genomics, and the Biopsychosocial Paradigm in the 21st Century

I'll read this more 2moro. But there are a few things
Neuroplasticy does not have a default position and does not act with the intelligence of a surgeon. You seem to think that it does. It may heal , it may not , it may get worse , it may not , not exactly something you can role out to acute psychiatry.

You may also argue that there is no clear biological basis for schiz as Paris does, then present a mechanisim by which it is fixed yet still unable to define what the mechanisim is.

Anyway , ill talk some more 2moro. Cheers

I am not taking about surgery nor medicinal application when I posted my neuro research. I was referring to rethinking maddness. as well as regenerating illness, damage to your brain, bypassing diseased region of the brain to create and form new neural activity and new pathways. The evidence I gave you does not say 'may or may not' it indicated clearly through scientific experiment that it in fact does. It indicates and has verifies that your conscious awareness of your mind effects how your mind functions. indicating the new outlook or new knowledge or awareness of your brain or illness, helps to reform the illnes from another path.

You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it- Albert Einstein.

Well some say that when you point out the way the way then forms into that way. Prophets. It set the intent of the patients will, sets their expectations, and form their conscious awareness, knowledge into this pathway. Which is to say that when you give a patient hope in recovery then they often recover more so then one with no hope.

I also study theology as well as many other fields.

If you follow the evils of man, and invest your faith, and your trust and your power to their way, then you follow that way. If you invest it into yourself, then you follow yourself, and if you invest it into God then you follow that way.

It is to say seek and you shall find that which you seek, which touches into the scienitifc studies of the law of attraction and manifestation.

When you say that neuroplasticity bypasses diseased parts of the brain , with schizophrenia , we do not even know what the disease looks like , at an anatomical level , if we clearly knew this we could come up with better treatments , etc.

Well the research in the neurofields I have found and follow indicates that with intention one can reform and build new neural activity. As well as through focused attention and meditations. They may not know what it looks like on an anatomical level but you aware of your condition within you, the symptoms and experiences etc. I have found research indicating that the awareness you have of your mind effects how your mind functions. How you perceive your mind to be is how it forms your experience. For example people who have no awareness of mnemonic memory do not use it since they have no knowledge of it, whereas people who do use it and enhance memory. Just as mathematician can see math in everything whereas others do not experience it. I tried to find the new book I found about how to form your own mind through altering your perception of it, controlling the knowledge you active within you, aligning into to form. It is to say when you alter your perspective you see from a new angle, a new form of pathways. In this sense you can reform the pathways of your consciousness instead of following the same ones that cause illness within you. Reforming yourself. Cultivating your own mind and outlook, seeing in a new light can change the outcome. As Einstein suggests. When you mind reaches a limitation and you accept it, then you have formed that outcome in the pathways of your mind's attention. Everytime you think of your illness you activate that same path, sustain it, and yet if you alter your perception and knowledge, your path is free into a new direction. Activating new neurons, and forming a new region into your mind can be done with your own attention and meditative direction. Self-awareness is key. Shift your awareness and you will shift your perception. If the problem is in your mind, the pathways of your consciousness then you begin to reform them willfully right? You do not to see it on anatomical level, but merely need to focus and form your attention into a new direction, to bring new consicousness into the works. breaking your habitual thought patterns. Suspend your judgements of the illness, and focus to the intended goal, the intended future.

After reading this link think of your conscious state and see how you are conscious of yourself, your ailment, the ideas and 'facts' you have been given about it. You can think about rethinking them in a new way. You can recreate yourself, and anything you want about yourself, by thinking about yourself. You can even imagine that you(being physical, the conscious awareness you have of what 'physical is'), and the world, is made of infinite energy, and is ever evolving. Anything you can think of. Even the form of your brain, and it's neurology is physical. Since consciousness effects matter is not possible that consciousness forms physical? For me it is. Ask your self what do think you are?

10 Scientific Studies That Prove Consciousness Can Alter Our Physical World | The Mind Unleashed