CBT And Its Proven Role In Treating Schizophrenia

The best way to portray CBT is as an auxiliary process that assists anti-psychotic medications and other remedial approaches commonly sought for treating schizophrenia. CBT or cognitive-behavioral therapy includes training a chronic schizophrenic in social skills and is a considerable aid in managing the residual symptoms of the disorder.

CBT is largely employed to treat positive symptoms of schizophrenia as well as clinical depression, however, its effects are less pronounced in cases of negative symptoms. The secret to a successful CBT is short-term follow-ups on assertive community treatment to reduce a relapse.

CBT, being a type of symptom management, enables schizophrenics by improving their adherence factors and can be termed as strategic enhancement in reality testing to reduce adverse behavioral reactions. Together with low doses of second generation of anti-psychotic medications, it produces cognitive enhancements.

However, to define cognitive behavioral therapy under brighter lights, let's say it's a type of goal-oriented and systematic psychotherapy that has been found to solve any psychological problem that concerns dysfunctional emotions, erratic behaviors and impaired cognition skills. Empirical evidences state CBT also enhances mood and personality and alleviates anxiety; besides, it is also effective in treating eating disorders and substance abuses. A manual treatment, no doubt, but a treatment has to be that way when it is specifically driven by techniques requiring minor amendments as a part of the process. In short, it is a self-help application that helps in an overall cognitive and behavioral restructuring.

The roots of CBT were laid when behavior therapy was merged with cognitive therapy; though the two disciplines have roots in different theories, the common ground they base on is the theory of ‘here and now'. Thus, its influences have also reached the domains of post-traumatic stress disorder treatments as well as for treating compulsive obsessive disorders, clinical depression, bulimia nervosa (a disorder of eating in which the person alternates between strong craving for food and aversion to food; characterized by excessive eating followed by periods of fasting or self-induced vomiting) and neurological conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome or inflammation of the brain and spinal cord (encephalomyelitis) due to excessive stress.

But it's not an entirely wine-and-roses story with CBT; how much ever effective it proved in treating neurological disorders, the treatment procedure also received much criticism from the current medical industry. We may cite ‘Psychological Medicine' on this context; the journal published an article: "Cognitive behavioral therapy for the major psychiatric disorder: does it really work?" where the authors claimed CBT to be ineffective if employed with blinding and/or psychological placebo for treating schizophrenia. According to them, CBT is only good for treating clinical depression; as far as preventing bipolar disorder relapses, there are better treatment options that are available.