On March 25, 2000 the U.C. Davis School of Medicine
presented “Emerging New Clinical Treatment Strategies for Schizophrenia.”
Judy Williams, Betty Mitchell and Anna Huskey of NAMI Santa Cruz attended
the program. One of the three guest speakers was Steven L. Dubousky M.D.,
Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine, Interim Chair, Department of Psychiatry,
University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, Colorado.
Dr. Dubousky recommended psychosocial interventions, which tend to
improve the outcome using the drug clozapine.
Cognitive therapy and social skills training, when combined with
clozapine produced more improvement than clozapine alone.
This integrated psychological therapy consists of structured group
therapy. The three cognitive
components involved are cognitive differentiation (categorization of objects by
more general category), social perception (description of pictures of people
engaged in social interactions) & verbal communication (repeating verbatim
then paraphrasing another group member’s statements).
The results are an increased ability to recognize details of social
interactions. It is my belief that
this is an essential therapy that when combined with clozapine will help
schizophrenia patients to handle their environment.
Click for more information
on:
Cognitive
behaviour therapy for schizophrenia - from the Cochrane Review.
Schizophrenia:
treatment in day to day practice.
Schizophrenia-Dynamics
and Treatment by Elsworth F. Baker, M.D.
COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL
THERAPY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA by David G. Kingdon and Doublas Turkington,
Bassetlaw Hospital, Nottinghamshire.
Schizophrenia
Treatment - Dr. John Grohol.
