Interview with psychologist Lloyd Ross about delusions

Psychologist Lloyd Ross and I just put together this interview about working with delusions, hallucinations, and other issues commonly labeled "schizophrenic":

https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/02/un ... loyd-ross/

Lloyd has a particular approach which he described in this way:

Quote: "Over the last 40 years I saw approximately 150 people who could be considered schizophrenic because they were having delusions and hallucinations, i.e. they had a serious break with reality. Some of these therapies were very brief because they didn’t accept that I don’t use medication, which I always explained in the first session...

Now out of these 150 people whom I saw over 40 years, probably about 100 of them accepted my non-medication approach. The large majority of these stayed in treatment for at least one year, and many stayed for between three to five years or more...Most of the people I consulted with chose to try working without medication, which was often because they or their parents didn’t like what the medications were doing to them...

With somebody who was experiencing symptoms that the profession labels schizophrenic, such as having hallucinations, delusions, or being very paranoid, I would usually see them 3-5 times per week over a period of at least two years. Many of these schizophrenic clients were young people undergoing life transitions — these life transitions, like leaving home and going to college, often cause a stress that brings up earlier trauma and can cause a break with reality in a vulnerable person. But I also saw some older clients whose life stresses had precipitated a break. I worked intensively with them because psychotic conditions are very serious and require intensive help. "

We also discussed his success with the group that stayed over the longer term:

Quote: "The large majority of them get much better. I’d say 85-90% of the schizophrenic men and women who stayed in therapy at least two years got well to the point of being able to go to school, to work, to function in a meaningful, personally satisfying way, and to be involved in relationships. Probably a majority of these got married and had families. Sometimes their functioning was a bit awkward but they still functioned. For example, a young man who had been psychotic might date or marry the quiet, shy girl rather than the girl who was the life of the party. But they could still have a meaningful intimate relationship and become good parents.
So yes, for most people diagnosed with schizophrenia, if they get effective help they get better. They go out into the world and function, and most often they don’t become severely psychotic again.

In the early part of the work, what happens a lot of times is that as a psychotic person starts to function better, the voices reoccur; but they’re not as disturbing anymore, they’re okay. Later on, if the person more fully works through their issues, these symptoms can completely or mostly go away. Or they still occur but don’t bother the person much at all, because they’re much stronger emotionally."

And then we discussed many other issues like the biogenetic model, how to understand hallucinations as meaningful phenomena, some trauma in Lloyd's own history, Lloyd's views on NAMI and the business of psychiatry (may be controversial). etc. I hope you will check it out.