“PSYCHOTHERAPY AND SCHIZOPHRENIA:
SHOULD LISTENING REPLACE DRUGS?”

A Panel Discussion with Schizophrenia Survivors,
Therapists, and Researchers

According to the World Health Organization, U.S. recovery rates for schizophrenia are scarcely better today than they were 100 years ago. Pharmaceutical companies enrich themselves pushing drugs, which may control symptoms but can lead to chronic illness and brain damage. Doctors believe they shouldn't talk to patients about visions and voices because it will only make them worse. People in extreme states of suffering often have nowhere to turn to help them understand, not just suppress, their experiences.

On Wednesday, December 1, the MHC department of psychology and education and the Freedom Center will sponsor a panel discussion and community dialogue on "Psychotherapy and Schizophrenia: Should Listening Replace Drugs?" The discussion begins at 7:30 pm in the New York Room of Mary Woolley Hall. Panelists will include:

Catherine Penney, RN, who suffered years of schizophrenia and frequent hospitalization and now works successfully as a psychiatric nurse and patients’ advocate. She will talk about her treatment and recovery.

Daniel Dorman, M.D., UCLA psychiatrist who treats schizophrenic patients using psychotherapy, not drugs. He will talk about his work with Catherine and about writing his new book Dante's Cure: A Journey Out of Madness. An interview with Dr. Dorman is at http://www.dantescure.com/conversation.html.

Professor Gail Hornstein, Mount Holyoke College, author of To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World, the biography of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, one of the psychiatrists who pioneered the use of psychotherapy with psychotic patients. Prof. Hornstein will talk about the history and politics of psychiatric treatment. For information go to http://human-nature.com/free-associations/berke.html.

Speakers from the Freedom Center, a Pioneer Valley support and activist network of people labeled with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other severe mental illnesses, who will pose questions to the panel and lead a community dialogue with the audience. For information on Freedom Center, see www.freedom-center.org.

Presented by the Freedom Center, a support, advocacy, and holistic alternatives group run by and for people labeled with severe mental illnesses. The Freedom Center works to transform the mental health system and provides free support groups, advocacy, and education on holistic alternatives.

Cosponsored by Paloma House, a Northampton nonprofit agency offering low-cost psychotherapy based on empowerment and trauma recovery, and Windhorse Associates, a provider of nontraditional clinical mental health services.

ABOUT DANTE'S CURE AND TO REDEEM ONE PERSON IS TO REDEEM THE WORLD:

Dante's Cure: A Journey Out of Madness by Dr. Daniel Dorman is an account of a seven-year therapy process that guided Catherine Penney, a mute and catatonic patient, out of her suffering and to full recovery -- without any psychiatric medications. The book "reveals how madness is inherent to the human condition and therefore ought to be treated as such. To restore patients’ trust in their power to recover, rather than robbing them of their agency in the name of medical knowledge, is the true moral of this remarkable journey out of madness."

To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann by Gail A. Hornstein is a biography of a compassionate psychiatrist who lived and worked with her patients and treated people labeled psychotic using psychotherapy in a supportive environment. One of Fromm-Reichmann's patients was Joanne Greenberg, whose best-selling “novel” I Never Promised You a Rose Garden was one of the first narratives of a successful psychotherapy of someone diagnosed “schizophrenic.”