Goodbye, Doctor! New ideas about patient-led therapy

Last Monday we were introduced to a host of treatment options for people with mental illness--some as common as Freud's psychoanalytical techniques, some as bizarre and sci-fi as virtual reality therapy. All of these methods however had a common trait: they are all lead by a psychologist or therapist, someone guiding the patient in a certain direction. But just because a psychologist has studied the gamut of disorders, doesn't mean he/she truly knows the experience of living with the disorder. In an article from the Chicago Tribune via the APA website we are made privy to a new technique: therapy run by those with mental illness. Who knows better how to survive an especially dark depressive episode or how to overcome obsessive thinking than someone who is working with or has experienced these things themselves?

The concept has been around since the 1930s when Abraham Low, a neuropsychologist, would initially lead group therapy sessions, but then relinquish his authority, and leave the therapy in the hands of the patients. In the past decade there has been a resurgence of Low's methods--Illinois state hospitals are now using what they call "recovery specialists" former patients who have learned to manage their illnesses and can offer advice and hope to current patients. This method of treatment draws from many of those that we discussed in class, as everyone in the therapy group has probably experienced several of them themselves. Each person brings his/her experience with mental illness, be it depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, etc. and can relate their stories to someone else's. "[BLANK] helps me when I'm manic..." or "When I'm feeling depressed I...." These are things a doctor, a psychiatrist, cannot say to a patient. As one patient puts it, "When you're down you can get support. When you're up you can support someone else."

An expensive education and books upon books about mental illness, diagnoses, treatments, can only go so far. If you haven't lived it, you haven't lived it. Therapy is supposed to be a place where you can speak and not be judged, but anyone who has experienced it knows that this is impossible. Words are constantly being analyzed, actions explained. Perhaps with this new method of treatment, that will change.