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Describe and Evaluate the Psychological Therapies for Schizophrenia.

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Describe and evaluate the psychological therapies for schizophrenia.
Cognitive behavioural therapy has multiple different approaches;
Tarrier used detailed interview techniques and found that schizophrenics can often identify triggers to the onset of their psychotic symptoms and the participants find their own methods to cope with the distress caused by hallucinations. These strategies include: distractions, concentrations and positive self-talk. Other strategies include initiation or withdrawal from social contact, relation techniques, such as breathing exercises.73% of the sample reported that these strategies were effective in managing their symptoms.
Coping strategy enhancement was developed which aims to teach individuals to develop and apply effective coping strategies. These reduce the frequency, intensity and duration of psychotic symptoms.
A weakness of this is that schizophrenic patients have irrational thought processes which makes it difficult to identify the accuracy of their statements regarding the onset of symptoms and it is retrospective therefore it is hard to judge the accuracy of the theory.
A weakness of this study is that the main technique used is interviews, so participants may have faced demand characteristics, therefore decreasing the validity of the findings.
Another weakness is that the cognitive behavioural therapy does not offer a cure for schizophrenia, therefore is not entirely useful as it doesn’t look at the cause of the disorder which makes it simplistic.
A strength of this study is that CBT seems to offer an effective means of alleviating the distress associated with the florid symptoms of schizophrenia and therefore is effective in a real life situation.
A weakness of this study is that it is reductionist as it does not take into account the biological explanation of schizophrenia.
An ethical issue is that the

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