When I was training in psychiatry (which isn’t really all that long ago) I learnt that (most) psychotherapy – certainly the (if you like) “invasive” or insight-oriented ones – were potentially harmful to people with schizophrenia, and were in fact contraindicated in psychotic disorders as a result.
Imagine my surprise then upon moving to Australia, to find that (it seems) every other patient – including those with schizophrenia – sees a psychologist (or “counsellor” of some description). I reassured myself with the belief that surely these psychologists know what’s what, and would be sticking with cognitive therapy, which has some evidence of efficacy in schizophrenia for residual delsuions, and coping with hallucinations. In New Zealand our psychologists mostly were trained in cognitive therapy to almost the exclusion of all else, so I thought it was a safe assumption.
However …
Every time I ask a patient (with schizophrenia, or with some other condition) what sort of therapy they do with their therapist, they are unable to tell me. I ask about what they do, as CBT is pretty easy to recognise, with the activity scheduling, and homeowrk, and behavioural experiments and so forth. None. Zip. Nada.
… Feck.
I’ve just learned that a patient with schizophrenia is seeing someone (a psychologist, mind you) who is doing “repatterning”. So I looked up repatterening … “holographic repatterning” O_o or “resonance repatterning”
Resonance Repatterning (RR) formerly known as Holographic RepatterningŽ is a process to help you clear the beliefs, behaviors and negative emotions that create limitation in your life. Much of what holds you back comes from subconscious patterns, or programming, that took place early in life. These subconscious patterns create static or interference that prevent you from having the happiness, abundance, and fulfillment in work, love and health that you desire. These patterns are not yet in your conscious awareness yet have a major impact on your life, so repatterning first works by bringing the patterns into consciousness so they can be addressed.
And…
The process helps you clear these patterns and eliminate the interference, so that you easily and naturally move towards a state of greater balance, aliveness, harmony, and alignment with your goals—what we call coherence. To create coherence, we create a holographic “map” of the patterns to be cleared–with the client’s input and the use of muscle checking or kinesiology. We then select, with kinesiology from a comprehensive menu of healing modalities from many different systems of alternative healing.
woowoowoowoowoowoowoowoowoowoo
Pseudo-scientific bollocks? Check. New age wankery? Check. Sympathetic magic, appeals to ancient wisdom, and a side helping of quantum woo? … here ya go:
Repatterning is based on the idea–that everything has a vibration, or resonance, and that what we resonate or vibrate with, is what we will experience. Another way of saying this is, “What we resonate with, we attract”–a restatement of the Law of Attraction, which is now getting to be well known through the movie “The Secret”. The underlying principles are not new at all–in fact these ideas have been taught in the ancient wisdom on India and other cultures for thousands of years. What is new is that the ideas are now being validated through scientific research in Quantum Physics.
Oh, and even “The Secret” too.
That anyone can believe this stuns me. That a psychologist can fall prey to it blows me away. That this kind of crap gets foisted upon psychotic people – who are among the most vulnerable in our society, and can be seriously damaged by improper therapies … double-mega-super-facepalm.
This is the problem with private healthcare. Private practitioners can do whatever the hell they want and there is next to no control over them. It’s even worse in Australia, as the so-called “private” system is actually paid for with massive amounts of public money, through Medicare. So we have people being paid with public money – and more of it than those of us working in the actual public system – with no public control over what service is delivered for that money. It’s the worst of both worlds.
As far as I am aware, there are only two psychoterapeutic modalities that have any evidence to back up their claims: Cognitive Behavioural therapy, and Interpersonal therapy (Dialectical Behaviour therapy is really just CBT with a side helping of Eastern mysticism/woo). If you should happen to see a psychologist or psychotherapist of any sort, check what model they use. If they are “eclectic”, or ascribe to something other than CBT (including DBT) or IPT, I would like to suggest you think very carefully about what you want – and what you need. While the contact with that person, and their input, might be beneficial, there is no evidence to say that it is anything other than the time, care and attention that is helpful – and you might be able to get that in a more normal, healthy, and less invasive and expensive way.
Popularity: 4% [?]
some of this sounds a bit scientological
And having known only one person with schizophrenia – the thought of someone sitting down with him and trying to clear his patterns – actually I cant even imagine how bizarre the interaction would be.
You answered my question; this person who has been trained in psychology and is masquerading as a clinical psychologist, is in private.
We have a different problem here in NZ, although still related. It is possible to practice "therapy" or "counselling" without any training, and that allows those who have trained in industrial or educational or some other form of psychology to register as a "registered psychologist", meaning that the person has a degree in psychology, and has paid the requisite fees, to work as if they were clinical psychologists.
This is incredibly dangerous to the mental health of children in custody cases as they are full of theory and ignorant of clinical matters. It also fosters belief in burnout requiring balance (as decided by the therapist) in one's life, suddenly, after 25 years of a successful life in her way. Why NOW?
Apropos our other conversation, these beliefs are the psychologist's equivalent of adult ADHD de novo, rather than graduated.
Around here (Melbourne) chronic “schizophrenics” often spend a few minutes a fortnight or a month with their “case manager”. Usually when they go to be injected. If they do anything apart from both having one of the nurse’s cigarettes, I don’t know what that it is. A great many psych nurses and aides are into new age wankery, Amway or The Secret. Often they study ear candling, homeopathy, aromatherapy etc.