respond with additional info and insight to two posts

Karen Aldana

Treatments

Previous to this week’s readings, I knew a fair amount about schizophrenia, but the one thing I was very surprised to find out was that 1 out of every 140 people who live until at least age 55 will develop schizophrenia. (Hooley et al. 2020, pg. 442). To me, this is a large amount of people to have such a devastating disorder, but Hooley et al. (2020) does say that some people have a higher chance of developing the disorder if they have certain risk factors such as a history in the family, having an older father at the time of birth and having a parent that’s a dry cleaner. Like most mental disorders, schizophrenia has a wide range of treatment options. There have been over 60 different antipsychotic drugs developed to treat schizophrenia, but that is not the only option. Psychosocial and cognitive-behavioral therapy are alternatives that could be used in an effort to treat schizophrenia.

Psychosocial approaches are case management, family therapy, psychoeducation, and social-skills training. These approaches are generally used with medication and can help the patient learn how to better cope with life. Case management helps with finding outside resources for the patient such as housing and employment. Family therapy helps with patient-relative relationships by educating both about schizophrenia and how to cope with it. Psychoeducation is educating the patient themselves about the illness and how to cope with it. Social-skills training is a process to help patients with their day to day life, making friends and keeping a job.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is meant “to decrease the intensity of positive symptoms, reduce relapse, and decrease social disability” (Hooley et al. 2020, pg. 480). Cognitive-behavioral therapy makes the patient explore the nature of their hallucinations and delusions and makes them confront the validity of these symptoms. Exercise is also used as a cognitive-behavioral therapy by stimulating the growth of neurons and slowing cell death.

In conclusion, schizophrenia is a complex disorder that affects a wide variety of people for different reasons. Medications are the most common form of treatment for this disorder, but there are also other options available to patients. Psychosocial and cognitive-behavioral therapies are also used in conjunction with medication to help treat schizophrenia. These treatments help the patient cope with their symptoms and learn how to function with daily normal life such as working and taking care of themselves.

Reference:

Hooley, J. M., Nock, M. K., & Butcher, J. N. (2020). Abnormal Psychology (Eighteenth ed.).

Boston: Pearson.

POST 2

Jovan Jardine

Treatment Options for Schizophrenia

Like all disorders that we have learned throughout these past seven weeks, each disorder has its own form of treatment that can either be successful or unsuccessful. Schizophrenia is no different than other disorders when it comes to a vast amount of treatment options. One common form of treatment is the use of medications, also known as “antipsychotic medication” used to help treat psychotic disorders (Hooley et al., 2020). When it comes to a disorder like schizophrenia, however, medications can cause more harm than good. Fortunately, for those dealing with schizophrenia, there are other forms of treatments depending on how extreme their conditions are. Two examples of these are cognitive-behavioral therapy and family therapy.

One other form of treatment, besides the use of medications, for patients with schizophrenia is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT is a very common form of treatment therapy for many other disorders. CBT involves the patient focusing on positive thoughts and expelling negative ideas. The main goal that a therapist wants to achieve when using the CBT method, is to decrease the intensity of positive symptoms, reduce relapse, and decrease social disability (Hooley et al., 2020). The therapist also wants to dig into why their patient is having these psychotic episodes and/or delusions. The involvement of CBT is a relatively new form of treatment when dealing with schizophrenia patients, so whether or not is a successful form of treatment is still up for debate.

Another example of treatment, other than the use of medication, is the use of family therapy. Family therapy is one of the many different forms of psychosocial approaches to schizophrenic treatment. Family therapy involves “working with patients and their families to educate them about schizophrenia, to help them improve their coping and problem-solving skills” (Hooley et al., 2020). The main focus is that the therapist wants to ensure better family communication and involvement which can offer a higher success rate in reducing relapse. As the patient, having your family members supporting them fully while understanding what they have to deal with, can have a positive impact on alleviating signs and symptoms of schizophrenia.

In conclusion, medication can be a great use of treatment for many disorders, including schizophrenia. However, most forms of medications create more problems while trying to suppress the schizophrenic symptoms. This is why therapists enforce other forms of treatments that can have higher success rates than simply depending on medications. A therapist will recommend using cognitive-behavioral therapy if the patient is having problems controlling their hallucinations and/or delusions. On the other hand, a therapist will recommend using family therapy if their patient is at a high risk of relapsing and still lives with their parents (Hooley et al., 2020).

Reference:

Hooley, J. M., Nock, M. K., & Butcher, J. N. (2020). Abnormal Psychology (Eighteenth ed.).

Boston: Pearson.