Living in a developed country is a “strong predictor” that a person newly diagnosed with schizophrenia will never fully recover.

                                                            World Health Organization, 1992

 

A few historical highlights:

 

1. In the 1970s, the National Institute funded three trials that compared traditional drug-based care to experimental forms of care that involved selective, minimal use of antipsychotic drugs, and each time the experimental group had better long-term outcomes.

 

2. In a long-term study of patients discharged from Vermont State Hospital in the 1950s and 1960s, Courtenay Harding determined that thirty years later, one-third had completely recovered. And all of those ex-patients had stopped taking antipsychotic drugs.

 

3. When the World Health Organization compared outcomes for schizophrenia patients in rich countries to those in poor countries, it determined that outcomes were much, much better in the poor countries. In the poor countries, the WHO reported, only 16% of patients were regularly maintained on antipsychotic drugs.

 

4. In 2007, researchers at the University of Illinois reported that 15-years after initial diagnosis, 40% of the schizophrenia patients who had weaned themselves from antipsychotic medications were “in recovery,” versus five% of those who were on the drugs.  (See chart below.)

“This is such an important book that every psychiatrist should be compelled to read at least the preface, every year. And everyone else should then insist on them describing in writing, every year, what they are doing about it.”

 

An American Library Association best history book selection in 2002.

 

Long-Term Schizophrenia Outcomes