Posts tagged SMI
An LIU Post Specialty Concentration
![[Article of Interest] Adapting to the challenge of psychosis: personal resilience and the use of sealing-over (avoidant) coping strategies
By Lynda Tait, PhD; Max Birchwood, DSc; Peter Trower, PhD
Excerpt of the Article: In contrast to earlier views of recovery style as a stable trait characteristic, recent evidence suggests that recovery style can change over time […] Recovery style has been identified as an important factor in adjustment to psychosis.
This [study] supports the view that a functional sense of self or identity is an important resilience factor in recovery from psychosis, and in facilitating coping efforts.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3x5nxcNSq1rt6iypo1_500.jpg)
[Article of Interest] Adapting to the challenge of psychosis: personal resilience and the use of sealing-over (avoidant) coping strategies
By Lynda Tait, PhD; Max Birchwood, DSc; Peter Trower, PhD
Excerpt of the Article: In contrast to earlier views of recovery style as a stable trait characteristic, recent evidence suggests that recovery style can change over time […] Recovery style has been identified as an important factor in adjustment to psychosis.
This [study] supports the view that a functional sense of self or identity is an important resilience factor in recovery from psychosis, and in facilitating coping efforts.
![[Article of Interest] Schizophrenia: When Hallucinatory Voices Suppress Real Ones, New Electronic Application May HelpBy Elin Fugelsnes/Else Lie; translation by Glenn Wells/Carol B. Eckmann. Excerpt from the article: “Every one of us hears inner voices or melodies from time to time. The difference between non-afflicted individuals and schizophrenia patients is that the former manage to tune these out better,” the professor points out.If patients could learn to stifle inner noise it could have a huge impact on our ability to treat schizophrenia, he states. To this end, Professor Hugdahl’s research group has developed an application that can be used on mobile phones and other simple electronic devices, to help patients improve their filters.Wearing headphones, the patient is exposed to simple speech sounds with different sounds played in each ear. The task is to practice hearing the sound in one ear while blocking out sound in the other. The application has only been tested on two patients with schizophrenia so far. The response from these patients is promising, Dr Hugdahl relates.“The voices are still there, but the test subjects feel that they have control over the voices instead of the other way around. The patient feels it is a breakthrough since it means he can actively shift his focus from the inner voices over to the sounds coming from the outside,” the professor explains.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3v0u9DYy31rt6iypo1_400.jpg)
[Article of Interest] Schizophrenia: When Hallucinatory Voices Suppress Real Ones, New Electronic Application May Help
By Elin Fugelsnes/Else Lie; translation by Glenn Wells/Carol B. Eckmann.
Excerpt from the article: “Every one of us hears inner voices or melodies from time to time. The difference between non-afflicted individuals and schizophrenia patients is that the former manage to tune these out better,” the professor points out.
If patients could learn to stifle inner noise it could have a huge impact on our ability to treat schizophrenia, he states. To this end, Professor Hugdahl’s research group has developed an application that can be used on mobile phones and other simple electronic devices, to help patients improve their filters.
Wearing headphones, the patient is exposed to simple speech sounds with different sounds played in each ear. The task is to practice hearing the sound in one ear while blocking out sound in the other. The application has only been tested on two patients with schizophrenia so far. The response from these patients is promising, Dr Hugdahl relates.
“The voices are still there, but the test subjects feel that they have control over the voices instead of the other way around. The patient feels it is a breakthrough since it means he can actively shift his focus from the inner voices over to the sounds coming from the outside,” the professor explains.
"International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses" soon to be called "International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis"
MEDIA RELEASE
March 2011
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY REMOVES ‘SCHIZOPHRENIA’ FROM ITS TITLE
Members of the International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses (www.isps.org) have just voted, by an overwhelming majority, to change the society’s name to the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis. The new logo and letterhead are to be adopted by the end of March.
The change comes at a time when the scientific validity of the term schizophrenia is being hotly debated in the lead up to the publication of the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (see http://dxrevisionwatch.wordpress.com).
ISPS promotes psychological treatments for persons who experience psychosis (e.g. hallucinations and delusions), and greater understanding of the psychological and social causes of psychosis. Founded in 1956, ISPS now has branches in 19 countries, has its own scientific journal, Psychosis (www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rpsy) and has published 13 books in the last decade. Members include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, nurses, occupational therapists, family therapists and academic researchers, as well as users of mental health services and family members.
In debates preceding the vote the two primary reasons put forward in favour of the change were that the term ‘schizophrenia’ is unscientific and stigmatizing. It was pointed out that the construct has little or no reliability (the extent to which experts can agree on who meets criteria for a diagnosis) or validity (the construct’s ability to predict things like prognosis or treatment responsivity). Research has also repeatedly found that ‘schizophrenia’ is one of the most stigmatizing of all psychiatric labels, and promotes unwarranted pessimism about recovery because of the implication that people with this diagnosis suffer from an irreversible ‘brain disease’.
Depression in Command:
In times of crisis, mentally ill leaders can see what others don’t.
Great crisis leaders are not like the rest of us; nor are they like mentally healthy leaders. When society is happy, they toil in sadness, seeking help from friends and family and doctors as they cope with an illness that can be debilitating, even deadly. Sometimes they are up, sometimes they are down, but they are never quite well.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
[Link of Interest] ISPS E-mail Discussion Groups
Various discussion groups made available for individuals whose lives are touched by psychosis, directed by The International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses.
Saneworld (Sane Mix) by Dave Fuglewicz and Jeremy Gluck
Short animation using scenes from ‘Symptoms in Schizophrenia’ from Internet Archive
[Blog of Interest] Confessions of a Schizophrenic
From the Blog’s description: A place for schizophrenics to vent, get advice and write confessions.
[Article of Interest] Why Do We Really Get Tattoos?
Excerpt: Tattooing is no longer just tattooing. It’s a culturally sanctioned form of delicate cutting.
[Article of Interest] Psychopharmacology of Schizophrenia: The Future Looks Bleak
Researchers argue that the treatment of schizophrenia addresses the phenotype and not the cause; that the causes may not be treatable even if identifiable; that secondary prevention approaches involving treating the phenotype before full-fledged illness develops have, so far, not yielded promising results; and that shifting the focus of treatment from dopamine to other neurotransmitter systems is merely a tertiary prevention approach which will not reverse the extensive structural and functional pathology of schizophrenia.
[Article of Interest] Empirical Evidence that Childhood Adversities Increase the Risk of Psychosis
Evidence suggests that adverse experiences in childhood are associated with psychosis. To examine the association between childhood adversity and trauma (sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional/psychological abuse, neglect, parental death, and bullying) and psychosis outcome, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychINFO, and Web of Science were searched from January 1980 through November 2011.
[Article of Interest] Recovery from "Schizophrenia" and Other "Psychotic Disorders"
A recent news story reported on the creation of a room that can mute 99.99% of all sound. It was designed partly to see how humans exposed to the quiet of outer space might react. Not well, it turns out. It is reported that the longest anyone has been able to endure being alone in the room in the dark has been 45 minutes. The reason? Everyone – not just those “genetically prone to psychosis” – starts to hallucinate.
A list of past SMI events can now be found in the SMI Flyers section.
[Link of Interest] Jonah Lehrer Meets Stephen Fry: The Paradoxes of Bipolar Disorder and Creativity
40 percent of the successful creative people [researcher Nancy Andreasen] investigated had [bipolar] disorder, a rate that’s approximately twenty times higher than it is in the general population.
Dr. Danielle Knafo, coordinator of the SMI Specialty Concentration, interviewed by Daniel Mackler in the film “Take These Broken Wings,” on recovery from schizophrenia without medication.
Dr. Danielle Knafo, coordinator of the SMI Specialty Concentration, discusses it at Long Island University’s Post Campus Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program.
