cbt

• Cognitive behavioural therapy is a psychological method of treating schizophrenia. It usually takes place over 5-20 sessions and aims to deal with thoughts and behaviour. CBT allows patients to make sense of irrational cognitions such as delusions and understand how they affect feelings and behaviour.
• Research has found that it is beneficial for clients to understand where their symptoms originate from. For example, auditory hallucinations come from a malfunctioning speech centre in the brain. This can therefore make symptoms less frightening for patient and allow them to cope with their condition better. Similarly, delusions are a product of maladaptive thought processing. This can be challenged through reality testing whereby patient and therapist examine rationality of thoughts.
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  +evidence for effectiveness by jauhor et al. He conducted a meta-analysis, reviewing 34 studies on cbt used for schizophrenia. He concluded that there were small but significant effects on both positive and negative symptoms. This led to NICE recommending cbt as a treatment for schizophrenia, providing more ecological validity to this treatment as it is recommend to use across whole populations. Thus, as it is a meta-analysis it means these results have high generalisability and will have little risk of individual differences that may lead to false conclusions to be drawn.
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  -However, cbt often involves many different methods as a treatment. Thomas has criticised this meta-analysis as each individual study used a range of different methods, depending on the variation of positive or negative symptoms that each participant was experiencing. Therefore, this means it is harder to quantify the effectiveness for the results as each method was not standardised therefore meaning the conclusions are harder to generalise.
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  -Similarly, another limitation for cbt is that it doesn’t necessarily ‘treat’ schizophrenia. While cbt allows individuals to challenge irrational cognitions and understand the basis of their condition, it cannot actually treat their condition. They can only simply improve the quality of life through making symptoms more manageable. Therefore, this suggests that an interactional approach towards treatment is best adopted so both biological therapies can treat distal causes, while psychological therapies ca treat proximal symptoms.
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  -length of time cbt takes to improve symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. NICE claims cbt takes between 5-20 sessions to see significant changes. However, if patient is experiencing multiple negative symptoms such as avolition or speech poverty, they may find it extremely difficult to have the motivation to attend therapy and express thoughts and feelings to a therapist. Therefore, this suggests that antipsychotics may be the most favourable approach to treating schizophrenia as individuals don’t have to feel daunted and overwhelmed with having to regularly attend cbt.