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The following all document successes in the treatment of Schizophrenia. A common theme either implicit or explicit is of someone believing in the patient and his/her ability to get well. This supports David Cooper's assertion that all that is needed is a witness. None however mention David Cooper and none can adequately explain their successes.
New Hope for people with schizophrenia. Abstract from "Monitor on Psychology Vol 31, #2 Feb 2000".
Long-term studies show people do get past mental illness. Data shows that rates as high as 68% recovery/significant improvement without need of medication are possible. A small but growing number of psychologists are rejecting old treatment models that viewed patients as hopeless cases but rather use a recovery model that instead of focusing on the disease or pathological aspect of schizophrenia concentrates on the potential for growth. Harding’s study of 269 patients who were released between 1955-1965 from Vermont State Hospital after a rehabilitation program whose goal was self-sufficiency. Her study showed that 62-68% of these former backward patients showed no signs at all of schizophrenia. She also studied same number of patients from Augusta Maine who were released at the same time but whose rehabilitation program was based on medication. 48% showed a recover/significant improvement and were all off medication.
Harding says what they all had in common was that they were all out of the hospital and had someone who believed in them, someone who had told them that they had a chance to get better.
Ronald Bassman PhD. Diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young man, recovered, earned his doctorate and is involved in patient empowerment programs in the New York state office of mental health says:- "It's miraculous how people come back. If you talk to someone who is doing better he or she will tell that someone - a friend, a family member, a pastor, a therapist - reached out with warmth, gentleness and kindness. This is not what is typically done in the Mental Health System."
The authors of the above article do subscribe to a "Brain" model of mental illness so cannot explain their findings.
Click here to read full article. New hope for people with schizophrenia.
Humane Treatment
Humane treatment is the key to success. The less the patient is treated like a mental patient who has to be "cured" the better the prognosis. It is not the symptoms that need to be diagnosed or labeled but rather the individual needs a friend. Encouragement in any activity without criticism or judgment facilitates the development of personality.
See the Dr. Giorgio Antonucci Story: -
Dr. Giorgio Antonucci used communication, physical exams and standard medical treatment to help schizophrenic and “incurable” patients who had been cruelly restrained for decades at Imola psychiatric asylum in Italy. He taught his patients living skills and organized concerts and trips to Rome as part of their therapy. Subsequently, many were discharged from Imola to lead successful lives. Against tremendous opposition from his peers, and without the use of drugs or coercion, Dr. Antonucci salvaged the lives of hundreds of patients deemed incurable and institutional cases. Today, many of his patients continue to live and work in the community. He is an inspiration to medicine.
Click here to see full story.
Love, Hope, and Brain Science
Transcript of speech by Lars Martensson at seminar "Road to Recovery",
San Diego, April 2nd, 2004:
During four years the Falun (Swedish city) team took care of 37 first time psychotic patients. Normally about half of first time psychotic persons get stuck in their psychosis, become chronically psychotic, and get the diagnosis schizophrenia. You do not get that diagnosis right away; you get it after some time when you seem stuck in psychosis. The remarkable outcome is that during these years there was not a single new case of schizophrenia in the Falun area.
In a population of 60,000 people in four years you expect about 30 new cases of psychosis out of which about 15 graduate to schizophrenia. In Falun there were ZERO, instead of 15 cases of schizophrenia. This fact indicates that most, if not all people, who become schizophrenic with normal psychiatry, would overcome the psychosis with the Falun REVERSE PSYCHIATRY. In other words, with the right help at an early stage the development from psychosis to schizophrenia may be prevented.
Because Göran Andre was chief of psychiatry these years in Falun he was able to ensure that ALL first time psychotic patients were directed to the psychosis team. Thus, there was no selection of patients. Therefore we can be sure that all those 10 or 20 young people in Falun who were destined to become chronic schizophrenics if they had been treated by normal psychiatric methods, were saved from this terrible fate – we can be sure they were among the 37 patients seen by the team.
Click here to see full story.
The following Quote is from an article originally published in the New York Times on Sunday, March 10, 2002, in response to the release of the film A Beautiful Mind.
Beautiful Minds Can Be Recovered
by Courtenay M. Harding, PhD.
Senior Director
Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Science
Boston University
The film "A Beautiful Mind," about the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John F. Nash Jr., portrays his recovery from schizophrenia as hard-won, awe-inspiring and unusual. What most Americans and even many psychiatrists do not realize is that many people with schizophrenia -- perhaps more than half -- do significantly improve or recover. That is, they can function socially, work, relate well to others and live in the larger community. Many can be symptom-free without medication.
Click here to read full article. Natural Recovery from Schizophrenia
We've been misled by the Drug Industry
By Daniel B. Fisher
Washington Post Sunday, August 19, 2001;
I have recovered from schizophrenia. If that statement surprises you -- if you think schizophrenia is a lifelong brain disease that cannot be escaped -- you have been misled by a cultural misapprehension that needlessly imprisons millions under the label of mental illness.
The most important elements in my recovery were a therapist who believed in me, the support of my family, steadfast friends and meaningful work.
Click here to read full article.
Social Network's Healing Power Is Borne Out in Poorer Nations
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 27, 2005.
A remarkable three-decade-long study by the World Health Organization -- one that many Western doctors initially refused to believe: People with schizophrenia, a deadly illness characterized by hallucinations, disorganized thinking and social withdrawal, typically do far better in poorer nations such as India, Nigeria and Colombia than in Denmark, England and the United States.
The astounding result calls into question one of the central tenets of modern psychiatry: that a "brain disease" such as schizophrenia is best treated by hospitals, drugs and biomedical interventions.
"Is it possible that a mental health system which is poor, deprived, with no resources, no drugs is providing better and more humane and sensible service to the population rather than in rich countries?" WHO's Saraceno asked? "Good mental health service doesn't require big technologies but human technologies. Sometimes, you get better human technologies in the streets of Rio than in the center of Rome."
Click here to see full story.
Recently there has been much discussion about the use of vitamins in the treatment of mental illness. The pioneer in this field is A Hoffer. Careful review of his home page shows that he not only uses vitamins but also at times uses Psychiatric medications but reduces these gradually as his patients improve. He is also an excellent therapist who listens to his patients and takes an interest in what they say are their problems rather than just treating the parents complaints. Further he believes he can help his patients and communicates this to his patients.
Hoffer’s Home Page Pioneer of Nutritional Psychiatry page with plenty of case histories.
Nutrition and Schizophrenia List of links dealing with the treatment of Schizophrenia using nutrition.
29 Medical Causes of Schizophrenia Article dealing with other causes for Psychosis including nutritional deficiencies
