The treatment of Schizophrenia has taken many forms over the past century. Since schizophrenia’s... more The treatment of Schizophrenia has taken many forms over the past century. Since schizophrenia’s recognition as a distinct mental disorder, the focus of treatment has been the mitigation of symptomology. Both the prevalence and effectiveness of psycho-pharmaceutical treatment has highlighted the importance of symptom reduction and has established the dominant view of recovery based on this principle. Over the past few decades a mental health recovery model has emerged, through deinstitutionalization, mental health advocacy, and the general push for social empowerment of the disenfranchised, which focuses on the person apart from the disease. This alternative paradigm operates from a whole-person perspective of health and illness, and gives significant weight to the individual’s subjective definition of wellness, fulfillment, and personal meaning-making. Research focusing on the qualitative recovery experience of those with severe mental illness provides new insights into the subjective components of the recovery process, and identifies the importance of narrative in mending the individual’s sense-of-self. This model of recovery in mental health, and the proposed stabilization of a person’s sense-of-self as a crucial element in this process, opens the door to nuancing treatment for specific populations and individuals. This dissertation suggests a model of treatment for individuals with schizophrenia whose religious beliefs are the organizing center of their lives. Religiously competent therapists who have the skills to access this narrative material can use it to help the individual stabilize his/her sense-of-self. This study provides basic ideas for conceptualizing recovery and shows how narrative treatment in schizophrenia interacts with the meta-narrative of religious belief in general, and the Reformed Protestant religion in particular.
The treatment of Schizophrenia has taken many forms over the past century. Since schizophrenia’s... more The treatment of Schizophrenia has taken many forms over the past century. Since schizophrenia’s recognition as a distinct mental disorder, the focus of treatment has been the mitigation of symptomology. Both the prevalence and effectiveness of psycho-pharmaceutical treatment has highlighted the importance of symptom reduction and has established the dominant view of recovery based on this principle. Over the past few decades a mental health recovery model has emerged, through deinstitutionalization, mental health advocacy, and the general push for social empowerment of the disenfranchised, which focuses on the person apart from the disease. This alternative paradigm operates from a whole-person perspective of health and illness, and gives significant weight to the individual’s subjective definition of wellness, fulfillment, and personal meaning-making. Research focusing on the qualitative recovery experience of those with severe mental illness provides new insights into the subjective components of the recovery process, and identifies the importance of narrative in mending the individual’s sense-of-self. This model of recovery in mental health, and the proposed stabilization of a person’s sense-of-self as a crucial element in this process, opens the door to nuancing treatment for specific populations and individuals. This dissertation suggests a model of treatment for individuals with schizophrenia whose religious beliefs are the organizing center of their lives. Religiously competent therapists who have the skills to access this narrative material can use it to help the individual stabilize his/her sense-of-self. This study provides basic ideas for conceptualizing recovery and shows how narrative treatment in schizophrenia interacts with the meta-narrative of religious belief in general, and the Reformed Protestant religion in particular.
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Papers by Todd A Stryd