Psychotherapy & Other Non-Medication Treatments for Schizophrenia

While most treatment of schizophrenia involves one or more antipsychotic medications, other treatments have also proven effective and vital to helping a person with schizophrenia maintain their recovery. Medications seem to work best on certain symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations, delusions, and incoherence. Even when people with schizophrenia are relatively free of psychotic symptoms, many still have extraordinary difficulty with communication, motivation, self-care, and establishing and maintaining relationships with others. Moreover, because patients with schizophrenia frequently become ill during the critical career-forming years of life (their 20s), they are less likely to complete the training required for skilled work. As a result, many people with schizophrenia not only suffer thinking and emotional difficulties, but lack social and work skills and experience as well. We’ve also learned in recent years that early psychotherapy interventions — when a teenager is having early signs of possible schizophrenia — can help reduce the risk of later being diagnosed with schizophrenia, or reduce its severity. It is with these psychological, social, and occupational problems that psychosocial and psychological treatments may help most. While psychosocial approaches have limited value for acutely psychotic patients (those who are out of touch with reality or have prominent hallucinations or delusions), they are beneficial for those whose psychotic ...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Disorders Psychotherapy Schizophrenia Self-Help Treatment helping schizophrenia psychotherapy for schizophrenia rehabilitation for schizophrenia schizophrenia self-help self-help for schizophrenia Source Type: news