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The authors conclude that “even individuals with the most seemingly recalcitrant illness can improve and start to succeed at achieving their personally meaningful chosen goals” and suggest that “clinicians should not give up on these individuals when it seems that they are not improving as quickly as hoped. More intensive treatment (more frequently than once a week) might quicken their recovery response.”
Here is details on the people/program that did this research (U. of Pennsylvania)
My son’s case manager/therapist that he refuses to work with just recently went to training for this.
He said the idea was to work with the patient to come up with a goal that was important to them. It could be to be a race car driver or to get a girlfriend or anything. It didn’t matter if it was achievable or not.
Then, everything they do is centered around that goal. He was all excited about it & I would love for my son to be able to participate in it. Maybe he will when he gets more stable.
This has worked for my son. He wanted to be able to buy his own groceries and now he does. He had not grocery shopped for himself in several years.
Given this article, I am very interested.
A very low number of schizophrenics are employed, despite the fact that they’d like to be. Perhaps therapy like this can help?
Interesting. My daughter’s care provider has recently been asking her to set goals and try to challenge herself to be able to do more. Unfortunately, it either came at the same time as a setback, or caused it, but I really liked the idea of trying to see if she could get more out of life than she currently is.
I speak as someone who is on an antipsychotic depot but no longer has a sz-sz/a dx.
One of the ongoing difficulties across diagnostic changes has been the difficulty in thinking of and pursuing goals.
The nearest I have come is an ultimately futile attempt to lose weight. Sometimes I think it can be what may transpire from successfully achieving a goal that may be challenging.
For example if I had lost weight sufficiently it would have meant knowing how and when to buy new clothes. Something I am not very good at. I know there are belts but even knowing what size belt to buy would have been problematic for me. Then there is the task of measuring yourself to see what size trousers etc you may be needing. Again something that would have been problematic for me.
Do you buy new clothes for each stage of getting to your target weight or do you wait till reaching your target weight to splash out on new clothes?
If the former I could have seen myself ending up with a heap of clothes and nowhere to put them!
My example is perhaps a trivial one but it stresses that there are consequences of reaching goals that also have to be faced. Achieving a goal brings about a fresh set of challenges.
Firemonkey - I hate belts, so I don’t own any, but I buy them sometimes for my son & husband. They are the most confusing thing to buy based on size.
And, other clothes are hard to size out too. Nothing seems to be standard anymore.
So, I’m betting you’re far from alone in being confused about what sizes to buy.
I read that article. Very illuminating.
It both gave me hope but also despair when thinking that there is so much stigma and fear around sz spectrum disorders. Employers who are willing to hire them will have to offer some accommodation for things to function properly. Many employers would try to find a way to avoid it if possible.
Sounds like the therapy should continue when/if the the goal is achieved - to help ease into the transition of meeting the goal vs. living the goal.
I thank you firemonkey for talking about the problems with sizes and things of that nature. My son, still not formally diagnosed but on the sz spectrum somewhere, doesn’t know if he is 5’8" or 5’11". He has no idea what he weighs either. To him it is of no import. But I can see where some counseling on why these things are important would help him see the value in knowing theses things - so you can pick out proper clothes for example.