Psychological Treatments for Schizophrenia Flashcards
What is the purpose of CBT?
Makes the client aware of the relationship between actions, thoughts and emotions.
How does CBT affect a client’s thinking?
Challenges and disproves irrational thoughts.
Name 2 techniques used in CBT
Normalisation and reality testing
What is normalisation and what does it involve?
The patient is told that its normal for you to experience hallucinations after experiencing stress. It involves placing psychotic experiences on a continuum which helps the patient to feel less stigmatised.
What is reality testing in CBT and how does it help patients?
Therapist uses gentle questioning to help the patient understand that their thoughts are illogical.
How is the ‘hearing voices’ symptom treated by therapists?
Therapists convince them that the voice comes from the malfunctioning speech centre in the brain and cannot hurt them.
How are delusions challenged? How does this help the patient?
Challenged in reality testing. Person with schizophrenia and therapist examine the likelihood of irrational beliefs being true.
What is the goal of family therapy?
Aims to reduce expressed emotion within the family, preventing relapse. Also aims to increase the family’s ability to help.
What is Burbach’s model?
A model containing 7 phases that therapists should use to treat schizophrenia.
Give 3 phases that make up Burbach’s model.
Reducing secrecy/double bind
Preventing relapse
Skills training
Give a strength of CBT being effective.
What did Jahar conclude from his review of 34 studies of effectiveness of CBT?
What does NICE say about the use of CBT as a treatment for schizophrenia?
Jahar reviewed 34 studies using CBT to treat schizophrenia, concluding that there is clear evidence for small but significant effects on positive and negative symptoms. Other studies have focused on symptoms and have found that the frequency and severity of symptoms have reduced. Clinical advice from NICE recommends CBT as a treatment for schizophrenia, showing the value of it as a treatment.
Explain the limitation of CBT not being a cure.
Explain the idea of schizophrenia being largely biological.
However, CBT is good at reducing which types of symptoms?
As schizophrenia is largely biological, we’d expect that psychological therapy may only improve a persons ability to live with the disorder and not treat the cause. On the other hand, studies report significant reduction in positive and negative symptoms. This suggests that CBT does more than improve coping.
Explain the limitation surrounding a lack of availability for CBT.
How many people out of 10 recieve CBT in the UK for schizophrenia?
Haddock found that only 13 out of how many random patients had been offered CBT?
For those who were offered CBT, what did they do that made treatment ineffective?
Despite being a recommended treatment by NICE, only 1 in 10 people in the UK with schizophrenia will receive it. This is even lower in some areas of the country. Haddock found in a survey that only 13 out 187 randomly selected patients in the north west were offered CBT. However, of those offered CBT as a treatment, a significant number also refused or failed to attend sessions, limiting effectiveness even more.
Explain the strength of support from success of cognitive therapies.
What type of therapy did McFarlane conclude was the most effective?
Relapse rates by this type of therapy are reduced by what %?
When should family therapies be used to be most effective? Which society also recommends this?
A review of studies by McFarlane found that family therapies are one of the most effective treatments of schizophrenia. In particular, relapse rates were found to be reduced, typically by 50-60%. He also concluded that using family therapies as soon as mental health begins to decline is the most beneficial. Clinical advice from NICE recommends family therapy for everyone as soon as they are diagnosed with schizophrenia. Therefore, family therapy is likely to benefit people with different severities of schizophrenia.
Explain the strength of family therapy benefiting the whole family.
Why is therapy for the whole family important for recovery of the patient?
How does this lessen the impact on the patient?
A review found that these effects of therapy are important because families provide the most care to the schizophrenic. By strengthening the whole families functioning, this lessens the impact on other family members and therefore increases support to the patient. This is likely to lead to a reduction in symptoms.
