Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis - Essay Example

Introduction

Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects feelings and behaviors of an individual. It is not that common among children though there are rare cases. The most affected age group is the youth, between 16 to 30 years Treatment of this disease is important since some of these symptoms can lead to suicidal ideation among the patient. Evidenced based treatments have been significant especially cognitive behavioral therapy. , Though this treatment is not frequently used, it has helped patients recover and lead a normal life even after the sessions are over. The paper mainly focuses on how effective cognitive behavioral therapy is as a form of evidence based treatment of psychosis

Symptoms of schizophrenia

Schnizophrenia symptoms mostly cause significant effects on the patient and if not taken care of may lead to suicide. Some of the symptoms include behaviors that are psychotic and not common with healthy people, like hallucinations, delusion among others. The disorder also manifest through disruptions to normal emotions and behaviors of an individual such as distorted facial expression of emotions. Cognitive symptoms are expressed through changes in memory. In addition, the patients may have difficulty in understanding information and applying them. This leads to less focus and ability to concentrate among the patients.

Evidence based treatment for schizophrenia

This type of treatment is mainly used in treating mental disorders and substance abuse. The treatment is modified to fit each individual needs as a means of treating illnesses. It entails a combination of counseling, medication, and supportive services. Counseling can be individual or group based and depends on the patients requirements it mainly entails changing of behaviors, thoughts, emotions and patients’ understanding of situations. Social workers such as psychiatrists and counselors offer psychotherapy sessions to the patients as a way of treating the disorder (Beck & Rector, 2005). Counselling is carried out through cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational enhanced therapy. Motivational enhanced therapy mainly involves rapid internally motivated change. It engages patients to gather individual resources and use them to build self-motivation towards certain goals.

Medication is another form of evidence-based treatment that involves prescribed drugs meant to reduce the effect of symptoms in patients suffering from this disorder. They include antidepressants, anti-anxiety, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers . These are effective when used with other evidence-based methods such as psychotherapy. Since they cannot be effective on their own, rather they help manage symptoms to help the patient seek other strategies that can help him/her recover. In some situations, symptoms go away but later relapse worse, this is why it is important to include others forms of mental stabilization to prevent use of these drugs for a long period. Usage for a long period would require more dosage to be as effective. This is particularly dangerous to the patients since these drugs have side effects, which include vomiting, nausea, and blurred vision among others.

Supportive services are acritical component of evidence-based treatment Case and care management is coordinated with other physical factors such as employment housing to help in the recovery process. Flexible supports increase the chances of healing, due to increased social interaction as they work to control symptoms and relapses. Peer support is also efficient since the patients learn from others who had similar conditions but were able to recover. This is carried out in social supportive groups meant to give hope for suffering patients under treatment.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

This mainly involves therapy that seeks to influence patients to seek self-made solutions to their problems by focusing on their behaviors, feelings, and thoughts. These solutions retain systematic goal-oriented strategies. Following these strategies results in treatment of the patients’ problems and increase happiness by changing dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and thoughts that cause psychosis. Its main purpose is to encourage patients to challenge altered cognitions and change their destructive behavioral patterns. Patients and their therapists should maintain a good relationship based on trust and honesty for it to work effectively. The length of therapy is dependent on the patient’s response to talk therapy sessions (Hansen, 2006).

It is mainly carried out in phases with the first being assessment. In this phase, the counselor listens to the patient in an effort to understand his/her thoughts about life experiences. This way the therapists understands the patient and can accurately describe the patient’s problem (Beck, Rector, 2005) these sessions are very productive and the results should be shared with the patient. These increases trust between the two, which results to more honesty from the patient. Some of the shared aspects include causation, rating scales and maintenance methods that evolve as the session continue (Hansen, 2006).

Socratic questioning is important in every session. It is both beneficial to the patient and therapist. The therapists gets to understand the patients situation better, on the other hand the patient gets a clearer understanding of his situation as he opens up to issues and problems (Beck, Rector, 2005) The shared information also give the patient an understanding of his/her symptoms that leads acceptance. Therapist should show flexibility by emphasizing on the unique perspectives and feelings of distress experienced by the patient. In this, a vulnerability-stress model helps to make the patient understand vulnerability is actively changing. Therefore, the patient is advised on ways prevent factors that may increase vulnerabilities resulting to some of the symptoms (Hansen, 2006).

The goal-setting phase follows-up after the assessment phase. The purpose of this phase is to motivate the patient to a realistic and achievable goal with the help of the therapist. This goal describes what the patient wants to achieve at the end of the therapy sessions. Then comes the normalizing stage. The aim of this stage is to change the perception of the patient’s experiences from being catastrophic to normal. This phase helps reduce the patient’s anxiety and sense of isolation (Hansen, 2006) it helps improve the patient’s social relation with other members in the society. Decreasing stigmatization and resulting to an increase in social relations, that makes recovery possible.

Therapists then let the patients create alternative deductions and explanations to their previous maladaptive assumptions. They should not force already made deductions on the patient; it might turn out to be depressing for the patient. The therapist should therefore cooperate with the patient to come up with new ideas and new explanations that would not damage the patient. This type of treatment to psychosis helps patients understand the thoughts and feelings that influence their behavior. This makes them more aware of the vulnerabilities and are well equipped even after the sessions are over.

Many have accepted cognitive behavioral therapy as an effective intervention for schizophrenia. Research has shown that these talk therapies significantly improve both negative and positive symptoms in different patients (Hofmann et al, 2012). Links between feeling and thoughts are set and used in a more flexible way to keep the patient aware of his condition and ways to connect more with reality. Through the various phases, a patient is made aware of his vulnerabilities, and therefore equipped with the necessary knowledge to enable them counteract symptoms. In addition the patients gain through routine and adjunctive supportive care to help fit fully in the society (Hofmann et al, 2012)

Conclusion

Cognitive behavioral therapy is quite effective in the treatment of schizophrenia. Through the various phases, patients can get in contact with their conditions since treatment involves revealing of vulnerabilities. Once the therapists and patients develop good relations and sessions are filled with trust, humor and honesty, recovery is inevitable. As the patient discovers that faults are not catastrophic, they are able to accept themselves and focus more on recovery. Acceptance is important since they can effectively evade vulnerable situations that would lead to hallucinations and delusions. Psychosis is devastating to patients, as therapist reveals the symptoms to the patients; it becomes more comfortable for them and accept behavioral change as advised by the therapists. Though the use of this therapy in curing patients with schizophrenia is uncertain, there is no recognized superior in durability of treatment. Research is necessary to increase knowledge on this topic to improve this therapy further and increase its effectiveness.