Healing Madness with Communication, Conversation, and Love
Does anyone believe schizophrenia ( a form of "madness" that includes seeing things and hearing voices) can be "cured" with conversation only—with words and human connection alone?
Most modern psychiatrists deny that this is possible. They claim that schizophrenia is a permanent brain disease. But a newer form of therapy is challenging that old perspective.
This particular therapy was developed in Lapland, Finland, and is referred to as open dialogue therapy. It is a form of acute family or group counseling that relies on the power of open communication. It is an approach that involves two main parts: tolerance of uncertainty and polyphony.
Polyphony refers to multiple voices interacting together (meaning all individuals in the counseling session are allowed to speak and be heard), and tolerance of uncertainty suggests that counselors unconditionally accept what happens in the session. If these tenets are adhered to, the healing process may proceed spontaneously as a result of everyone working together.
Metaphors and Symbols Helps Lessen Psychotic Symptoms
The therapy is mainly concerned with helping the "patient" talk in metaphors and symbols so they can more clearly convey how they are thinking and feeling. This open atmosphere of expression allows for understanding to be reached by all family members or loved ones, which may lessen the sufferers psychotic symptoms.
Furthermore, in open dialogue therapy, the therapist does not interview the group with goals in mind, nor does the therapist worry about the past, or about how the family functions. The therapist does not have an agenda other than to hear the stories of the family and client. She just listens and attempts to make an authentic connection with the client experiencing the madness.
In practice, whats this means is that no one is being judgmental to the sufferer, and that everyone is listening with empathy and truly trying to understand what is going on.
Current Research, the Medical Model of Psychiatry, and Leveraging Love
This open dialogue approach may sound like wishful thinking for a cure, but current research demonstrates that it is effective in reducing or eliminating delusions and hallucinations associated with schizophrenia. It may even work better than antipsychotic drugs without the long term negative effects. This makes it one of the first forms of therapies to be useful against psychosis.
The following excerpt of research comes from a psychologytoday.com article written by Neel Burton M.D.:
"The development of Open Dialogue is linked to evidence of its superiority to normal treatment of acute psychosis. After 5 years (1992–1997) of Open Dialogue treatment in Lapland, 81 % of participants had no remaining psychotic symptoms and 81% had returned to full employment. Only 35 % had used antipsychotic drugs (Seikkula et al., 2006). Similar results emerged from Tornio between 2003 and 2005. In the UK, only 20% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia would be expected to be symptom free after 5 years, with close to 100% of all patients with psychosis receiving antipsychotics."The problem is the that this form of therapy has not found popularity in the United States due to psychiatric insistence on adopting the medical model of mental illness (as well as problems with insurance companies).
Psychiatrists in the U.S. believe that schizophrenia is a chronic condition that requires lifelong use of antipsychotic drugs. However, open dialogue therapy seems to prove that schizophrenia may be more about relationship and life problems than about a broken brain.
My hope is that we can all be informed on these new types of therapies so that we can help get people away from taking prescription chemicals. The evidence already shows that open dialogue therapy can reduce or eliminate stress that may lead to a person to experiencing full-fledged madness. And to me, this illustrates the power of love that humans can leverage in service of those who suffer.
My name is Sterlin. Follow me at @sterlinluxan and Psychologic-Anarchist. I also run the Psychologic-Anarchist Facebook page and produce YouTube videos. My interests lie in the intersection of counseling psychology and anarchism. I write about the depredations of psychiatry, and also the philosophy of compassionate anarchism.
The best ever therapists are those who have empathy and show this to their clients.
All therapists are told that you must not "identify" with your client but all this does is attract the people who cannot or will not empathize with anyone at all.
A highly empathic person cannot be a therapist as 1/ They cannot stand back and be objective 2/ Their colleagues will not let them be emphatic as it is unprofessional.
A psychiatrist in the UK was struck off the medical register for giving her patients hugs of sympathy and kindness, her patients all said that these gestures of tenderness were worth all the drugs they were prescribed but the General Medical Council did not like this sort of treatment.
Twats.
I agree with you. Not all diseases should sound like a death sentence. We must try everything, there is hope. Excellent article is about what to think.
helping with love/communication etc is def not in the interests of big pharma !
Truth!!
Which is why I hope we can get more people familiar with amazing forms of therapy like Open Dialogue.
Exactly! If big pharma has there way, and they always do! They will be sure to put the kaboshes to this! 😉
Using human methods for healing is such an important area, psychology unfortunately has hindered this in recent times due to people's attitudes towards labels.
It is so important that this is repaired in the not too distant future, thank you for writing about this.
here is where I will be featuring your post today https://steemit.com/hidden-gems/@dragonslayer109/daily-pick-of-hidden-gems-29
Thanks again, Dragon. I am glad that you enjoy my work and share it.
Big Pharma owns the US medical industry. EVERYTHING here is about medicating, even to the point of medicating because of the side effects of medication. Big Pharma owns the schools, they train the doctors, they own politicians and they own the FDA. It's all about profits, regardless of the health of those affected. Whistleblowers are disappeared.
The problem with psychological disorders is that people believe they are indeed disorders.
There isn't anything magical about living with somebody who has narcissistic personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder. These people intentionally enjoy the emotional, psychological and sometimes physical abuse of other human beings.
@kyriacos. Indeed. I agree. People believe these "conditions" are actually brain disease. In my opinion, I think they are more like expressions of stress they manifest relative to life circumstance.
It might work for some people, but it won't work in all cases. There are a variety of different ways the brain can misfire to produce psychosis or schizophrenia. Some people need their drugs
Hey, sirwagginston. Thanks for the comment. I would agree, but the evidence tends to suggest that these compounds actually create chronically ill individuals over the long term. In this sense, people definitely do not need their drugs...at least not the chemicals handed out by psychiatrists. Furthermore, there is not any strong evidence that the brain "misfires" to produce psychosis. The current cause of "schizophrenia" is unknown, but most psychiatrists will claim that it is a mixture of environment, personal psychology, and genetics. I tend to think it hinges more on relationship problems and difficulties in life, which lead a person to manufacture these symptoms. But that is a whole other conversation.
Not all psychiatric medications are the same, nor all all psychiatrists. I've been on/seen both good ones and bad ones (not for psychosis/schizophrenia). I quit clonidine and methylphenidate, but I wouldn't advise quitting fluoxetine for the majority of OCD sufferers.
I feel a most of the conflict born in our brains is out of it's own imagination, and when speak and we're heard our brain's bluff is called. This allows an individual to think more clearly.
I see psychiatry as one modality of healing that in and of itself is not sufficient. We are creatures made up of mind body and spirit each part of a greater whole. In having a background in social work and a wholistic model of healing, I adhere to a client directed multi-discipline approach. It is my hope that the client can take the lead and responsibility for his own healing and escape or liberate from the victimization programming inherent in our culture.
There are many fascinating therapies, some that focus on the body, while others on the mind and spirit. Two I've discovered recently is Family Constellations and A Course In Miracles. And I really like what you are doing, Sterlin, bringing some unity in thinking in the philosophy of Anarchy, love, liberty and community. I looking forward to more of your writings.
PS
And thank you for introducing me to Steemit. I think getting to understand how steemit works is my greatest challenge right now. How all this works is still a mystery to me.