Rethinking schizophrenia: Taming demons without drugs - 06 February 2014 - New Scientist

A very dense article but some interesting findings and alternatives presented.  I would love to see more research done and this become a valid possibility here in the States.I would like to see if there could be any cross over in treating bipolar disorder as well as I noticed some similarities with my journey to be med free (14 years and counting).  I highly recommend giving this a serious read if you or someone in your family (or friends) deal with schizophrenia.  Print it out and take it to your therapist or doc.

Bullimore's experience may be an extreme case, but we have long known that the drugs used to treat schizophrenia are very far from ideal. The downsides have always been seen as a necessary price to pay for relief from the condition's devastating symptoms, but now that idea is being called into question. Not only are the side effects of these drugs worse than we thought; the benefits are also smaller. Although people need to be taken off their drugs slowly and carefully to avoid a relapse, it looks as though outcomes are better in the long run if medication is kept to a minimum.

Now, there is growing interest in less damaging ways of helping people with the condition – including talking therapies and even forms of brain training. "People are starting to think differently about schizophrenia," says Max Birchwood, a psychologist at the University of Warwick in the UK. "Attitudes are definitely changing."

[,,,]
More importantly, those in the stopping-medication group had more than double the chance of achieving what psychiatrists call "functional recovery" – 40 versus 18 per cent (JAMA Psychiatry, vol 70, p 913). In other words, even though they might have occasional symptoms, they could hold down jobs and look after themselves. "That's what's meaningful to the patient," says Lex Wunderink, a psychiatrist at Friesland Mental Health Services in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, who led the study. Wunderink speculates that this ability to function independently is being hampered by the dopamine-suppressing effects of antipsychotics.

[,,,]
In the meantime, the problems with antipsychotics are leading to growing interest in a range of alternatives to medication. The most promising are talking therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which aims to train people in new ways of thinking. CBT is often used for depression and anxiety to combat negative thought patterns, but psychiatrists have been sceptical about its usefulness for schizophrenia. "People say CBT can't possibly work – schizophrenia is an intrinsic brain disorder," says Birchwood, who helped pioneer CBT. "How can talking therapy change anything to do with the brain?" Yet many studies have shown it to be useful.

Rethinking schizophrenia: Taming demons without drugs - 06 February 2014 - New Scientist