Psychological Intervention and Schizophrenia Essay -- Disorder Schizop

Psychological Intervention and Schizophrenia There are perhaps two main prongs to the development of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as an intervention for schizophrenia, the first being based upon the sizable research that centre on family interventions, which have been successful in reducing patient relapse in schizophrenic families (Pilling et al., 2002). Family interventions are important to consider as they became established treatments during a phase where drug treatments were the main focus of attention in this field and so opened the area of non biological treatment for schizophrenia. And as I will touch upon later drug therapies are frequently used to reduce psychotic symptoms and relapse but these treatments rarely provide the answer, with as many as 50% of patients suffering from persistent psychotic symptoms when adhering to pharmacological treatments (Dickerson, 2000). The other aspect that has seen CBT be considered as a treatment for schizophrenia is that it has been effective in treating a range of non-psychotic disorders both mild and more serious (e.g., Hawton, Salkovskis, Kirk, & Clark, 1989; Clark & Fairburn, 1997). The range of effective CB therapies stem from early studies where depression and anxiety disorders were the subject of interest (Beck et al., 1979; Barlow, 1988) to more serious psychotic disorders, such as bipolar disorder (Basco, Rush, 1995; Perry et al, 1999) and personality disorders (Beck et al, 1990). While the success of family intervention, a non drug related therapy, and CBT’s success in treating various disorders provide evidence for the potential of CBT in treating schizophrenia they have been developed amid a backdrop in which drug therapy has been extensively explored, but has failed to produce a whole solution to the complexities exhibited by schizophrenia sufferers. It is likely then that as an intervention for schizophrenia CBT will provide a part solution rather than an all-encompassing answer. Detailed study of patients’ experiences has led to a greater understanding of the stress suffered by patients who go on to develop coping mechanisms, which can be treated using CBT, to deal with the symptoms of their illness (Mcnally, Goldberg, 1997). The fact then that there are so many aspects to this disease means that it would be impossible to provide a comprehensive review in this paper but I will discuss... ..., Tarrier, N., Morriss, R., McCarthy, E., & Limb, K. (1999). A randomised controlled trial of teaching bipolar disorder patients to identify early symptoms of relapse and obtain early treatment. British Medical Journal, 318, 149–153. Pilling, S., Bebbington, P., Kuipers, E., Garety, P., Geddes, J., Orbach, G. et al. (2002). Psychological treatments in schizophrenia: I. Meta-analysis of family interventions and cognitive behaviour therapy. Psychological Medicine, 32, 763–782. Sensky T., Turkington D., Kingdon D., Scott J. L., Scott J., Siddle R., O'Carroll M. & Barnes T. (2000). A randomised controlled trial of cognitive-behavioural therapy for persistent symptoms in schizophrenia resistant to medication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 57: 165-172 Watts FN, Powell GE, Austin SV. 1973. The modification of abnormal beliefs. British Journal of Medical Psychology 46: 359–363. Wiersma D., Jenner J. A., van de Willige G., Spakman M., Nienhuis F. J. (2001) Cognitive behaviour therapy with coping training for persistent auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia: a naturalistic follow-up study of the durability of effects. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 103 (5): 393-399