Improve Schizophrenia with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Meditation, along with utilizing the painful energy of hardship as fuel for the meditative fire, has made me feel differently about life. I now look at my experience of life, despite it being the only thing I am aware of, as being a small part of a bigger picture.” – Jack Bragen

 

Schizophrenia is the most common form of psychosis. It effects about 1% of the population worldwide. It appears to be highly heritable and involves changes in the brain. It is characterized by positive symptoms such as hallucinations; seeing and, in some cases, feeling, smelling or tasting things that aren’t there, or delusions; unshakable beliefs that, when examined rationally, are obviously untrue. It is also characterized by negative symptoms involving a reduced ability to function normally, neglect of personal hygiene, lack of emotion, blank facial expressions, speaking in a monotone, loss of interest in everyday activities, social withdrawal, an inability to experience pleasure, and a lack of insight into their symptoms. The symptoms of schizophrenia usually do not appear until late adolescence or early adulthood.

 

Schizophrenia is very difficult to treat with psychotherapy and is usually treated with antipsychotic drugs. These drugs, however, are not always effective, sometimes lose effectiveness, and can have some difficult side effects. In addition, even when effective, antipsychotic drugs only treat the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, leaving the negative symptom intact including the loss of functionality and a lack of insight. Hence, there is a need for safe and effective alternative treatments for schizophrenia that can treat the negative symptoms.

 

Mindfulness training has been shown to be beneficial for a variety of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline personality disorder, impulsivity, obsessive compulsive disorder, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual dysfunction, and suicidality. It also appears to be helpful with psychosis. Mindfulness has also been shown to associated with lower symptom severity of schizophrenia. This suggests that mindfulness training may be an effective treatment for schizophrenia, including negative symptoms.

 

In today’s Research News article “Test of Mindfulness-Based Psychosocial Skills Training to İmprove Insight and Functional Recovery in Schizophrenia.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.shsu.edu/doi/full/10.1177/0193945917697222

Ylimaz and Okanlı recruited patients with schizophrenia and assigned them to either receive an 8-week, 45-minute sessions, twice per week, mindfulness based psychosocial skills training program or to a no treatment control condition. Patients continued taking antipsychotic medication throughout. The program consisted of mindfulness training, including “breathing exercise, body scan meditation, mindfulness in daily living, etc.”, and psychosocial skills training, including “communication skills, problem-solving skills, psychosis and antipsychotic drug therapy, recognizing and coping with stimulants, avoiding alcohol and drugs, learning and applying hygiene rules, and methods to cope with stress.” Before and after training and 2 months later the participants were measured for cognitive insight and for functional recovery, including social functioning, health care and treatment, daily life skills, and occupational functioning.

 

They found that following training and two months later, the mindfulness based psychosocial skills training group was significantly better than the no-treatment control group on all measures, cognitive insight and functional recovery, including social functioning, health care and treatment, daily life skills, and occupational functioning. Hence, the mindfulness based psychosocial skills training produced significant improvement in the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. It should be noted that the no-treatment control condition did not contain an active alternative treatment. So, many confounding factors such as placebo effects and experimenter bias could account for the results. In addition, since the treatment program contained both mindfulness training and also psychosocial skills training, it is unclear which component or their combination is necessary for effectiveness.

 

These are potentially important findings. The positive symptoms of schizophrenia were controlled by drugs in these patients. But, the drugs do not affect the negative symptoms. The results of this study suggest that adding a mindfulness based psychosocial skills training program to antipsychotic drug treatment can help to improve the negative symptoms of lack of insight and lack of functional recovery. Thus, the combination program may be able to treat the entire spectrum of symptoms with schizophrenia.

 

So, improve schizophrenia with mindfulness.

 

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Emine Yılmaz, Ayşe Okanlı, Test of Mindfulness-Based Psychosocial Skills Training to İmprove Insight and Functional Recovery in Schizophrenia. West J Nurs Res. 2017 Mar 1:193945917697222. doi: 10.1177/0193945917697222.

 

Abstract

This study was conducted with two groups (training and control) using a pretest/posttest design to determine the effect of mindfulness-based psychosocial skills training for improving insight and functional recovery levels in patients with schizophrenia. The study sample included 45 patients with schizophrenia (21 were in the training group/mindfulness-based psychosocial skills training and 24 were in the control group/standard drug medication). The data were collected using a Personal Information Form, Functional Remission of General Schizophrenia (FROGS) scale, and Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS). The training group was divided into two groups of 10 to 12 persons on average. Training was given as a group training for a total of 16 sessions, two sessions a week for 8 weeks. The training group scored significantly higher in functional recovery and insight levels than the control group after training ( p < .05). The study determined training has an effect on increasing the levels of insight and functional recovery in schizophrenia.

http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.shsu.edu/doi/full/10.1177/0193945917697222