Did Carl Jung Really Cure Schizophrenics?
Kalinda
Pileated woodpecker
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I've read articles pointing to a theraputic technique where he identified archetypes in people's behaviors, delusions, emotions, and cured them by simply listening and having compassion for them i.e. via Open Dialogue?
http://www.jungcircle.com/exile.html
http://recoveryfromschizophrenia.org/20 ... zophrenia/
https://sites.google.com/site/punishing ... an-thought
"Jung’s view, which he further elaborated in another paper presented the following year, entitled simply ‘Schizophrenia’,[62] was essentially that stress triggered the release of a toxin, which he described as ‘a kind of mistaken biological defence-reaction’.[63] When this happened the toxin could act in a way similar to hallucinogenic drugs such as mescalin, and, by penetrating a biological storage area in the brain, unlock the person’s instincts and flood the conscious mind with archetypal images."
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"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." Martin Luther King, Jr.
"After long-term follow-up half of people with schizophrenia have a favourable outcome while 16% have a delayed recovery after an early unremitting course."
I once read that 30% recover, but maybe that's a bit high.
"In people with a first episode of psychosis a good long-term outcome occurs in 42%, an intermediate outcome in 35% and a poor outcome in 27%."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognosis_of_schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is also a spectrum and it depencs where you do the cut-off. To Carl Jungs time, also schizoaffective, schizotype PD or just people with a psychotic episode were considered as scizophrenic and also autistics and borderline patients were very often considered as being schizophrenic in the past.
So yes it's possible out of different reasons:
1) Some schizophrenics recover
2) The definition of schizophrenia in the past was slighly different, so that also people got labeld as "schizophrenic" who would get another diagnoses nowadays.
It also depends how you define "cure" or "recovery". Those are two different standartdefinitions:
1) "improvements in core signs and symptoms to the extent that any remaining symptoms are of such low intensity that they no longer interfere significantly with behavior and are below the threshold typically utilized in justifying an initial diagnosis of schizophrenia"
2) "complete return to premorbid levels of functioning” or "complete return to full functioning"
The first one will be possible very often. 42% of schizophrenics have a good outcome and many of them will have just slight problems in the future or no positive symptoms, just some negative symptoms who remaine.
But the second definition is also possible, but rare.
I propably would have also been one of Carl Jungs "cured schizophrenics" because I once was slighly psychotic and paranoid when I had strong trauma symptoms.
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"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." - Woody Allen
Kalinda
Pileated woodpecker
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That's a really interesting point. If many people with AS, Bipolar, BPD, were misdiagnosed then it would make more sense that those people recovered through therapy, although wouldn't the main criteria be hallucinations in anyone diagnosed with schizophrenia? I take anti-psychotic, but I also take a stimulant. I wonder how much I am even controlling my symptoms vs. having mastered coping techniques. For one, I can handle stress really well and might become a counseler in the future. But why I ask about Jung is I think it'd be impossible to give a Transpersonal Jungian approach while my treatment has been quite the opposite of that, where I was given forced medication to subdue the hallucinations and through time and strength managed to prove the psychiatrists wrong. Now they're scratching their heads and calling it Bipolar/psychosis and Adhd. Well, I dunno. They claim it never was schizophrenia though.
I am really liking how much Vyvanse has helped, but in the long-term I feel if I got off the sedating anti-psychotic, used Vyvanse for focusing and keep in control and coping easier that way, and then hopefully withdraw from that? I don't know if that's wishful thinking. I am not hyper-religous, but Carl Jung was heavily criticized for basically saying something quite profound: that we're all connected on the most basic grounds, in our minds and hearts and souls. I wish I had been there when Carl Jung was still practicing, I think I would have loved it.
Although the last article posted seems to posit that Jung was targeting the poor --for some reason I think this is a fabrication based on a personal bias of the author. The poor are more affected because of lack of resources, by him treating mostly the poor he was helping the most marginilized areas of society.
_________________
Your Aspie score: 159 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 61 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie
"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." Martin Luther King, Jr.
I don't see it as "misdiagnoses" in that sence.
I see it more like that they had a bit another definition of schizophrenia at that time.
It's like I would just have 3 psychiatric disorders for example:
- psychosis
- borderline
- neurosis
So then would I have moved from borderline to neurosis, propably or I would still be in between.
But nowadays our definition of "borderline" has changed. It isn't anymore everything "in between", it is something very specific. But when I read older articles, they have another definitions.
But nowaday I receive different diagnoses, because we have more and the definition has changed.
It's more or less with a lot of diagnoses like this.
I'm diagnosed with HFA and have a bipolar suspicion for example.
In the past bipolar was something very extrem, with mania and so on, but I just get hypomania and I'm more depressed than something else. So in the beginnings of bipolar I maybe just would have been depressed.
Same with autism. I talk, I have some social contacts and so on.
Maybe one day the definition of some diagnoses will change again.
I read that approximately 50% of all schizophrenics have autistic tendencies or even autism. That they interview the parents and looked how the person behaved as a child and that there should be a new diagnostic cathegory for those people.
That would be McDD: "multipe complex developmental disorder", the theory that the brain is between autism and schizophrenia.
If we have this category we will maybe say in the future that approx. 50% of ppl with the lable "schizophrenia" where missdiagnosed, because they all had McDD in reality.
But the paradox thing is now, that our definition we have of schizophrenia now, also includes those ppl, so that they got the right diagnoses if you use the diagnostic standarts we have today.
But this change of definitions is also the reason why it is so difficult to compare old articles about a certain diagnoses with new ones.
Psychiatry is not an exact sience.
_________________
"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." - Woody Allen
Kalinda
Pileated woodpecker
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Joined: 9 Jan 2012
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Location: West Virginia
The problem I have had is that I would over-analyze the definitions and apply them to me against others', and then I would be even more in denial of having a problem because mine wasn't accurate. I think mania and autism seem to be my issue. But, you know maybe it's ok not being labeled AS or anything else. I broke down crying and told my dad I didn't want to be gradually losing my mind "neurodegenerative" disorder/bipolar or schizophrenia. And he said that it may not be chronic, and that the medications we both know have helped.
I keep switching around my thoughts, and this is what's scaring me. It's not my personality per-se, but environment that is causing me to switch, mildly, to contradict my values sometimes. For instance, I wasn't going to drink anymore at all. Then I went to the bar last night, drank, and justified the three beers as no big deal and needing a release, but I had fun.
_________________
Your Aspie score: 159 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 61 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie
"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." Martin Luther King, Jr.
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