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Location: Prescott Valley, Az (unfortunately still here)
2,543 posts, read 4,886,160 times
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I had a friend, here in near downtown Prescott, who has schizophrenia. But she's been able for a some years. She sees her therapist 1 time a week, she also goes to Overeaters Anonymous meetings (she was a compulsive overeater for a time), and takes her medication carefully (but she doesn't have to take a lot).
She always had a smile on her face and a ready hug for me, when she saw me. She was a sweet lady. Yes, hers is very controlled.
It is just like so many of the so-called "incurable" diseases. Of course they are incurable --by orthodox medicine-- because those doctors are no longer educated about causes of disease; how to balance hormones; how food effects everything about us; how trace mineral imbalances can be harmful and how to help the body to naturally heal itself.This is only taught to those that go into Traditional natural medicine that has been around for hundreds if not thousands of years -- and is the reason our human race survived as long a it did. If we needed drugs to survive, we surely wouldn't have made it all the way to the mid 1900's. Traditional doctors understood that Schizophenia was not a drug deficiency, they knew better how to fix the imbalance.
The problem with conventional medicine today, especially in the United States is they threw out all that was good and had healed so many people throughout the centuries calling it "snake oil" to trade it for unproven and dangerous drugs ....all for the almighty BUCK!
Instead today orthodox doctors are trained to treat symtpoms only with drugs. Why cure a patient when treating him with drugs his whole life is so much more profitable?
I believe there is a safe natural cure out there for most if not all our ills. Sometimes in acute situations there isn't enough time for those treatments to work and we need drugs to stabilize us. but if they can be used in the interim to give the natural medicine time to work, there could be some outstanding and impressive results in health care in our country.
Not only would we be saving money by making people well enough to non longer need Rx drugs but we'd also be giving people back their health!
We might go from 38th in the civilized world for health care effectiveness up to 4th or 5th or maybe higher! The Obama Administration if it REALLY wanted to help Americans would be focusing on treatments that are safe, inexpensive and work and NOT how to get tax payers to spend more money to pay for insurance that will only cover drugs and surgery. This helps NOBODY!
Too often, the process of tearing down different thought destroys or delays marvelous opportunities.
I agree. But....
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
Once medication has been initiated, it seems apparent that a door has been closed.
I don't necessarily disagree with you in that I feel that in any field, an attitude of intellectual openness must exist in order for progress to be made. Clearly, psychopharmacology has come a long ways in terms of the types of medications that are now available, capitalizing on the fact that traditionally, most have been med non-compliant due to the horrific side effects of anti-psychotic drugs.
The problem I have with Perry is that I think he is --in essence-- putting 'the cart before the horse.' It is beyond me how he feels he can safely access the unconscious ego in someone who is psychotic, such that he can eventually "cure" or even help them! That's a dangerous undertaking and place to tread if one is not properly trained, and doing that sort of work in a very controlled setting.
As regards your quote, above, schizophrenics go off their medication all the time. Even while on meds, it's a struggle to navigate every day, 'ordinary' reality when one is schizophrenic. I can't help but wonder whether the difficulty entailed in that, and the individual's desire to give into the delusions isn't in part what Perry is able to capitalize on...Which would/could be nothing other than exploitative.
--Because more often than not, what I've found is that people will go off their meds only to end up hopeless, homeless, and wandering about in a world of personal, private turmoil and angst. While medication is not the "be all, end all," nonetheless even as a poor alternative for what had previously been a "normal mind" it is perhaps a far better alternative/option than what awaits those who decide to live without it...
Either way, it's just not easy. It's a devastating illness.
"The problem I have with Perry is that I think he is --in essence-- putting 'the cart before the horse.' It is beyond me how he feels he can safely access the unconscious ego in someone who is psychotic, such that he can eventually "cure" or even help them! That's a dangerous undertaking and place to tread if one is not properly trained, and doing that sort of work in a very controlled setting."
Perry understood the dangers, and not only was properly trained (partly by Jung himself) but did have a very sheltered setting for those he was working with. Quoting from the .pdf I cited:
"What we did at Diabasis was specifically to set up what we hoped would be the most ideal, least toxic (smile), least damaging environment for a person in the visionary state.
First off, this means a home. You need a place with friendly, sympathetic individuals who live there. These people have to be companions, have to be willing to listen and not be frightened and not be judgmental about it, and not try to do anything to anybody. One has to let the visionary process unfold itself spontaneously.
Under such conditions, to our surprise, we found that our clients got into a clear space very quickly! We had started out with the notion that we would surely be in for alot of bedlam with all this "madness" going on, but actually the opposite was true!
People would come in just a crazy as could be on the first day or two, but they'd settle down very soon into a state of coherency and clarity. Often, when I would come in for a consultation at the end of the week, I would see someone who had been admitted in a completely freaked-out state just a
few days before, sitting at the dinner-table indistinguishable from anybody else; sometimes I couldn't tell if this was a new member of the staff, or one of our clients. The calming effect of a supportive environment is truly amazing!
It's a well-known fact that people can and do clear up in a benign setting. Actually, they can come down very quickly."
The proof is in the pudding. From the intro to the piece:
The results were amazing: without any treatment by medication, electroshock or locked doors – but with opportunities for painting, dance, massage, meditation and conversation – full-blown "schizophrenics" were able to go through their ego-death and emerge on the other side, as Perry put it, "weller than well." Instead of being sent to a mental hospital and/or being expected to taking medication for the rest of their lives, these people would live at Diabasis for the first three months, spend three more months in a half-way home, and then return to the outside world, with few if any relapses of their "schizophrenia"! [3]
This corroborated the results of R. D. Laing's famous Kingsley Hall experiment in London in the 1960s [4], in which only nine out of sixty-five "certified psychotics" who were tracked afterwards were re-admitted to hospitals again.
IIRC, a key (unstated) issue was that these were people going through an initial or early episode, where the breaks with reality had not repeated upon themselves and pushed the person into closer identification with the deeper myth and archetypes.
It is also important for any reader to understand that Perry's techniques are not "do it yourself" or home remedy territory, nor are they 100% effective.
I honor your skepticism and concern borne of personal experience, and in no way dismiss the importance of medications for those who have found re-integration too challenging. My point is to suggest a possible alternative for those who have not reached the state of requiring medication on a regular basis.
My deeper point is to point out that all of us build a personal mental construct of reality that includes where we, and everyone and everything else, fits within it. If and when that construct is found lacking or false in parts, a dis-integration and re-integration is vital to continued functioning.
Some of those constructs get destroyed when entering adulthood, nicely labeled by the professions as an appropriate "disorder." Some get destroyed when a personal crisis occurs, possible precipitating a change in religious beliefs or political leanings. Sometimes even the foundations of the personal construct get rocked and broken when the vague uneasiness that "things are not right" takes precedence over heretofore perceived reality.
Schizophrenic and psychotic episodes may at times be akin to the destruction of an abandoned warehouse in a city, with all the concurrent dynamite and blasting and noise. The warehouse has to be destroyed before the new structure can replace it. The noise and chaos can be temporary, and at times it is best allowed to run proper course. Most kids grow into adults without medication to help them. Most people change political parties or churches without medication. SOME of the more extreme destruction can also be handled without medication. Even better, when that chaos of change is gently guided, only the failing parts of the structure need be lost, and the new structure can be built upon better principles using and integrating the solid foundations of the old that remain.
Anyone who has had a metanoia experience, a sudden insight, a sudden change of heart, will understand the changed state between before and after, and the deep validity of change. For those who have had and understand this, recognize that sometimes the birthing process of change (especially deep change) can be much more difficult and drawn out than the simple and clear moment of insight. Perry's techniques respect the process of change, rather than rushing to minimize and quiet the clamor the birth process causes.
I bring this up to reinforce that extremes serve their purposes, and most of us have to visit a few extremes in the course of life, but that ultimately, balance and greater understanding yields the greatest rewards. Part of the middle road is exploring, and attempting to gently guide change rather than anesthetize the process or medicate the symptoms out of existence upon onset.
I grew up with a sick mother who tried on numerous occasions to cut back on meds.She had so many breakdowns it has now effected her severly. At age 60 she is in an assisted living facility and is also in the early stages of demensia...she has lived there for over 5 years....the sad fact is that they will never be"normal" or be able to be "weaned" of their medications as many try to do.I learned that from my mothers doctor when at the age of 16, I asked him if my mother would ever be the same as she was when I was growing up......I pray every day that a miracle would happen to restore her to her former self ...You see at age 13 I became her "mother" in a way.....
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