Psychotherapy as a Treatment for Schizophrenia :: Schizophrenia, mental illness, psychology,

Schizophrenia is a deep-rooted and mutilating mental illness. This disease can cause you to withdraw from the people and activities in the world around you. Which causes a person to retreat into a world of delusions and fantasies. Since no one knows the cause of this disease its hard to know what type of treatment is right. As of now there are two types of known treatments medication, and Psychotherapy. Only one of these two treatments is more endorsed by Doctors who treat this illness. Medication is the more favored of the two but Psychotherapy has a higher commitment rate. Which means that even when patients start taking prescription medication to treat their illness. In most cases they never stick to medication alone because of the side effects. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center even though drug treatments are the primary treatments, studies have shown that the psychological approach has a higher chance of preventing relapses. Some of these approaches are motivational interviews to encourage patients to commit to change, Community based rehab centers, that also help to train the patients social skills, Family Psychotherapy, and last but not least a cognitive-behavioral therapy that reduces the delusions and hallucinations that patients have. This disease mainly affects a persons ability to do everyday things. For example go into big crowds, shop, eat, cook, clean, do laundry. Basic things that one needs to do to live a normal independent life. So if these are the main things a schizophrenic person needs to learn. It can be accomplished with psychotherapy, or rehab. Instead of pumping a person full of generic prescription medication that isn’t going to do much but hurt them because of unbearable side effects, why not just organize groups or classes that is going to a help a person learn to do small but necessary things that they need for everyday life. Especially if the disease is in the early stages this can be accomplished even quicker.