There are few psychological therapies that have been significantly researched and shown to be effective with schizophrenia, but the leading one is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis / Schizophrenia.  While medications can help minimize many of the “positive” symptoms – the voices, delusions, etc. that are common with schizophrenia, even with the medications many people are still not enjoying their lives, and may have residual, ongoing problems like occasional negative voices, lack of social interaction, low motivation, etc.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Schizophrenia is designed to help with these problems.  One of the leaders in the field is a researcher / clinician by the name of David Kingdon in the UK.  Here is a good series of videos by Dr. Kingdon that goes through the background science, and the implementation specifics of CBT for schizophrenia.  We encourage you watch the entire series.

We’ve covered this approach in the past – and you can read more about this treatment and its history in the following stories: CBT for Schizophrenia Manual.  CBT for schizophrenia is standard, first-line treatment (in addition to medications) in the UK and is recommended for everyone who has schizophrenia.  In the USA – there are unfortunately few trained practitioners (we have a list here).  More background reading on CBT for schizophrenia is here.

Video 1 – Introduction to CBT for Schizophrenia

Video 2 – CBT for Schizophrenia – what does it Involve?

Video 3 – CBT for Voices

Video 4 – CBT for Delusions

Video 5 – CBT for Schizophrenia WorkSheets

Video 6 – CBT for Negative Symptoms (apathy, lack of social interaction, etc.)

Recent news: CBT beneficial for Medication-resistant Psychosis / Schizophrenia (Medscape)