Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
This may be done by clinical psychologists, psychiatrists or nurse
therapists. The therapist helps you to:
- identify problems that are most troublesome for you. These
could be thoughts, experiences or ways of behaving.
- look at how you tend to think about them - your "thinking
habits".
- look at how you react to them - your "behaving habits".
- look at the effect your thinking or behaving habits have on the
way you feel or the way you behave.
- work out if any of these thinking or behaving habits are
unrealistic or unhelpful.
- work out if there are other ways of thinking about these
things, or reacting to them, that would be more helpful.
- try out new ways of thinking and behaving.
- see if these work. If they do help you, use them regularly. If
they don't, find better ones that do work for you.
This kind of therapy can help you to feel better about
yourself, and to learn new ways of solving problems. We now know
that cognitive therapy can also help you to cope with troublesome
hallucinations or delusional ideas. Most people have between 8 and
20 sessions lasting about 1 hour. For CBT to be effective, you
should have at least ten meetings over a period of about 6
months.
Counselling and supportive psychotherapy
These don't directly affect the symptoms of schizophrenia, but may
be helpful if:
- you need to get things off your chest
- you need to talk things over in greater depth
- you need some support with the daily problems of life.
Family work
This is not to do with trying to find reasons for the
schizophrenia. Family meetings are designed to help you and your
family cope better with the situation. They can be used to discuss
information about schizophrenia, ways to support someone with
schizophrenia, and how to solve practical problems that may be
caused by the symptoms of the illness. Around ten meetings are
needed over a period of about 6 months.
Cognitive remediation
This is being researched and is not yet widely available. It is a
kind of "mental gym" that has shown some promise in helping to
improve memory, and concentration in people with
schizophrenia.