psychological treatments for schizophrenia

• CBT:

  • 5-20 sessions, discuss irrational thoughts and how likely they are to be true
  • helps understand where symptoms come from e.g voices arent demons but cognitive impairment, decreases anxiety
  • challenges delusions - beliefs arent based on reality
• family therapy:

  • aims to increase quality of communication + interaction
  • mostly concerned with reducing stress + stopping relapse + levels of expressed emotions
• Pharoah et al - strategies:

  • alliance with family
  • balance caring + life
  • improving belief/behaviour towards disorder
  • decrease guilt + anger
  • decreases stress + increases chance of compliance with meds
• Burbach's model:

  • sharing basic info + providing support
  • identifying resources + what family can offer
  • encourage mutual understanding
  • identify unhelpful patterns
  • skills training e.g stress management
  • relapse prevention planning + maintenance for the future
• EVALUATION: effectiveness for CBT as a treatment

  • Jauhar et al - 34 CBT studies, small but significant effects on positive + negative symptoms
  • pontillo et al - cbt decreases frequency + severity of auditory hallucinations
  • increases validity of CBT - successful treatment for schizo
• EVALUATION: effectiveness of family therapy as treatment

  • mcfarlane - consistently effective treatment + relapse rates decreased by 50-60%
  • promising for those who have worse mental health + cant participate in CBT
  • increases validity, improves relations + tackles family dysfunction
• EVALUATION: biological therapies more effective

  • leucht et al - found antipsychotics more effective than placebos - drugs work + require less effort
  • cbt can decrease expressed emotions but are time consuming, patients may not engage + prefer antipsychotics
  • antipsychotics are more reliable + cost effective than psychological therapies