Psychological therapies for schizophrenia Flashcards
How is CBT used to treat schizophrenia?
It takes place for between 4 and 20 sessions and can work in groups or individually. The aim is to identify irrational thoughts and try and change them by discussing how likely the beliefs are and considering less threatening possibilities. This makes patients better able to cope with symptoms.
How does CBT help patients?
They can be helped to make sense of how their delusions and hallucinations impact on their feelings and behaviour. Understanding where symptoms come from can be very helpful and challenging the beliefs allows patients to see that they are not real
What is family therapy?
It is a therapy carried out with members of the family with the aim of improving communication and reducing the stress of living as a family.
How does family therapy help?
Pharoah identified a range of strategies to improve the functioning of a family. This includes forming an alliance with family members, reducing stress of caring for a relative, improving the ability of the family to anticipate and solve preoblems, reduction of anger and guilt in family members, helping family members to achieve a balance between caring for a relative and maintaining their own lives and improving attitudes towards schizophrenia.
What are the results of family therapy?
They reduce stress and expressed emotion which increases the chances of patients complying with medication and it also tends to result in a reduced likelihood of relapse and re-admission to hospital.
What is token economy?
A form of behavioural therapy where desirable behaviours are encourages with selective reinforcement
How is token economy used for schizophrenia patients?
Tokens are given to patients when they have carried out desirable behaviours such as getting dressed or tidying. These can later be swapped for rewards such as privileges or sweets.
What are the strengths of psychological therapies for schizophrenia?
Evidence for effectiveness as CBT has a significant but small effect on symptoms, family therapy reduces the risk of hospitalisation, one of 3 studies into token economy found an improvement in behaviour.
What are the weaknesses of psychological therapies for schizophrenia?
Treatments improve quality of life but don’t cure
There are ethical issues with treatments as they cannot withdraw from token economy and privileges are withdrawn.
Evidence is from small scale studies and often do not have a control group
Alternative treatments such as art therapy might be more suitable for some patients.
