Posted by Tomatheus on October 14, 2013, at 18:54:08
In reply to Recovery from Psychosis, posted by christ_empowered on October 14, 2013, at 15:58:58
Christ_empowered,
In the book "Surviving Schizophrenia" , E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., (1988) wrote that J.H. Stephens conducted the "best summary of possible courses of schizophrenia" by analyzing 25 studies where patients were followed up at least 10 years later. According to Torrey, Stephens found that 25 percent of patients with schizophrenia were considered to be "completely recovered" at both 10-year and 25-year follow-up periods. Torrey (1988) wrote that patients with schizophrenia who recover usually do so within two years of the onset of their illness and recover "whether they are treated with antipsychotic medication, wheat germ oil, Tibetan psychic healing, psychoanalysis, or yellow jellybeans." So, it is clear that some patients with psychotic illnesses do fully recover, and that the percentage of those with schizophrenia who make such a recovery is about 25 percent. Recovery rates may be higher among individuals with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder with psychotic features, and psychotic major depression, as these disorders tend to have better prognoses than schizophrenia does. As far as I can tell, the reasons as to why some patients completely recover and others don't are largely unknown. And even though Torrey wrote that those with schizophrenia who recover do so during the first two years of their illness, I think that exceptions to this rule are possible. John Nash is one such exception, having suffered a "severe psychotic breakdown" in 1959 before spending most of the next three decades in and out of psychiatric hospitals and ultimately showing signs of recovery in the late 1980s (Green, 2003).
So, in short, it does seem that some individuals with psychotic disorders undergo full recoveries. I tend to think that the reasons as to why some recover and some do not are as mysterious as the reasons behind psychosis itself, although perhaps some research on the reasons for recovery that I'm unaware of has been conducted. I'd like to hope that I'll completely recover from my affective psychosis one day. I've already noticed some improvements in the "affective" part of my illness since I started taking vitamin D, although with it only being two months since I started this vitamin D trial, I think it would be premature to say that I'm going to continue to notice improvements in the long run. Furthermore, I still experience mild hallucinatory phenomena and hints of ideas of reference even with the medication that I take (and the vitamin D has yet to help any of these symptoms), so I don't seem to have fully recovered from the "psychotic" aspect of my illness as of yet. Will I ever fully recover? Torrey would probably say that it doesn't seem likely, given the fact that I've been experiencing symptoms for longer than two years, but I tend to think that there are always possibilities.
T.
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REFERENCES
Green, M.F. (2003). "Schizophrenia revealed: From neurons to social interactions". New York: W.W. Nornton.
Torrey, E.F. (1988). "Surviving schizophrenia: A family manual" , revised ed. New York: Harper & Row.
Has an affective psychosis (schizoaffective disorder) with strong symptoms of fatigue, hypersomnia, and difficulty concentrating
Taking Abilify, niacin, vit. D
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1052239
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130930/msgs/1052255.html