Reddit reviews Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance

The study / intervention the article refers to is more commonly known as the Soteria Project. Moser has a book on it - http://www.amazon.com/Soteria-Deliverance-Loren-R-Mosher/dp/1413465234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321723383&sr=8-1

It's also discussed in Robert Whittaker's excellent history of the American mental health system 'Mad in America'. According to Whittiker (who was one of the first to critique the DSM V; now coming under wider condemnation from the American Psychological association as well as the editor of the DSM-IV TR), Soteria did indeed have quite a high success rate. While schizophrenia obviously has a genetic component there's no reason to assume that its expression isn't environmentally (epigenetically) mediated. Since all protein synthesis is to some extent environmentally mediated - whether through the intrauterine environment or the life course.

To believe that everyone who literally hears God talking to them should be locked in a psychiatric ward is insane! Seriously. Please please please read the book Rethinking Madness by Dr. Paris Williams. Your mode of thinking about hearing voices is outdated by psychological standards and actually dangerous to people.

After that you might want to check out The Spiritual Gift of Madness and Soteria.

Millions of people with things as simple as insomnia hear voices sometimes and yes some of the more religious of those ascribe it to God. Heck 7% of people diagnosed as schizophrenic are misdiagnosed because the psychiatrist didn't didn't do a simple one night sleep study or even a genetic study to identify that the patient actually has narcolepsy. As a result they get the opposite medications and often end up hospitalized all because psychiatry doesn't believe in doing tests before making a diagnosis.

Some people absolutely are speaking metaphorically and many are speaking about a sort of imperceptible 'voice' that is communicating more in concepts that they are ascribing to something outside of themselves but literally millions of people hear voices every day that they ascribe to things like God, Satan, angels, demons, aliens, and all other manner of thing. It does not mean they should be locked in a psych ward though.

For many people that hear voices more distress comes from society and loves ones telling them that they have a problem or a disease than comes from what the voices themselves are saying. More often than not its not the voices that are the problem - its the family and friends of the person hearing the voices and the old-school psychiatrists that are convinced its something that has to be medicated away.

You might also want to check out The Hearing Voices Network for more information.

Obviously, this is a cause I'm passionate about ;-)

There's also these books on recovery from psychosis without psychiatric drugs:

https://www.amazon.com/Soteria-Deliverance-Loren-R-Mosher/dp/1413465234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518044317&sr=8-1&keywords=soteria

https://www.amazon.com/Mad-America-Medicine-Enduring-Mistreatment/dp/0465020143/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0465020143&pd_rd_r=6970J61P9HCQQ0SCXDMS&pd_rd_w=hpEty&pd_rd_wg=QlKAN&psc=1&refRID=6970J61P9HCQQ0SCXDMS

https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Psychiatry-Electroshock-Biochemical-Theories/dp/0312113668/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518044412&sr=1-5&keywords=peter+breggin

https://www.amazon.com/America-Fooled-Antidepressants-Antipsychotics-Deceived/dp/0977307506/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518044431&sr=1-1&keywords=america+fooled

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1583919066/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Yeah, I get that. I think one of the major successes in the 20th Century was the movement toward medicalizing mental health issues so that they were given the credit they deserve. We know these experiences are a problem, and people having them are subject to many layers of oppression and human rights violations, and psychiatry has made a lot of strides towards these issues being taken far more seriously. I do also believe that psychiatry and pharmaceuticals do help some people. It is one option, and many people find their life more manageable because they have taken that route, and that's a beautiful thing and I'm very happy for anyone who has found solace there. But it is not universally true, and one of the reasons for that is how imprecise the science actually is on what is going on with the mind, and what the drugs are actually doing. The most famous example is the notion that depression is the result of lower than usual seratonin levels in the brain, which was actually the result of an ad that was using a study that had found that more people with depression in the study had higher levels of seratonin. But they had a drug that dealt with lower seratonin levels, so that's the narrative that was created (links below). Point being, (and see The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton on this), there is no chemical test for depression because there are many potential causes, and remedies. Psychiatry and the DSM have categorized these experiences, which I agree is a necessary thing to research them, but then got fully entwined with pharma. Now policies and laws impose that one narrative onto people who are going through these experiences, even though they often get it very wrong.


There are alternatives, and the Soteria house project by Lorne Mosher was one of the most interesting, where they took people with severe schizophrenia and had a virtually drug free approach, and their results were better than the alternatives. The problem for scaling up was that it did not put people on a lifelong hook for medication. So, I guess it's not about wanting to tear it all down, but I think people should know what's up, they should be informed about all the studies done on the chemicals they are taking, what all the side affects might be, and, ideally, alternative approaches that may benefit them in the long run. I think people going through these experiences should be given the rights and power to make decisions, including whether or not they will self-identify with the DSM categories at all.


I cannot stress the following enough, the result of extensive studies by the World Health Organization, as articulated by Robert Whitaker: "Most Americans are unaware that the World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly found that long-term schizophrenia outcomes are much worse in the USA and other developed countries than in poor ones such as India and Nigeria, where relatively few patients are on anti-psychotic medications. In undeveloped countries, nearly two-thirds of schizophrenia patients are doing fairly well five years after initial diagnosis; about 40% have basically recovered. But in the USA and other developed countries, most patients become chronically ill. The outcome differences are so marked that WHO concluded that living in a developed country is a strong predictor that a patient will never fully recover."

Sources:

Lorne Mosher's resignation letter from the APA

The Icarus Project (theicarusproject.net): "We are a support network and media project by and for people who experience the world in ways that are often diagnosed as mental illness. We envision a new culture that allows the space and freedom for exploring different states of being, and recognizes that breakdown can be the entrance to breakthrough. We aim to create a language that is so vast and rich that it expresses the infinite diversity of human experiences."

Soteria: From Madness to Deliverance, by Lorne Mosher

Mad in America by Robert Whitaker

Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker

The Anti-Depressant Era by David Healy

The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching by Terence McKenna

The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History by Terence McKenna

The point is to try and empower people to improve their lives, and since we don't know how to do that universally, giving people the power and options to be able to choose methods that work for them is a vital part of maintaining their autonomy and preserving their fundamental human rights. I find this subject is very difficult to discuss without it getting heated. Please understand I have so much sympathy for your experiences. I have tried to take care of people while they were in the midst of full psychotic breaks, I have had to call the police, I have had to participate in the forced hospitalization of people I have known, I have lost too many people to suicide. I know these things and they still hurt and I am welling up thinking about all of them. And I care about you too, and you're not alone.

Sorry re length.