Researchers from Indiana University find, in a study of 57 individuals with schizophrenia diagnoses, that “decreases in self-esteem at any given time point were associated with an increase in persecutory beliefs and other positive symptoms at the following assessment. On the other hand, decreases in insight were not significantly associated with paranoia or positive symptoms, either as a stable trait of the mental illness or as a predictor of change over time.” Results appeared online in Clinical Schizophrenia & Related Psychoses on July 5, 2012.
Erickson, M., Lysaker, P., “Self-Esteem and Insight as Predictors of Symptom Change in Schizophrenia: A Longitudinal Study.” Clinical Schizophrenia & Related Psychoses. online July 5, 2012
Which is why it makes total sense to unleash the wrecking ball of self esteem destruction that is the stigma of a so called serious psychiatric label.
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Amen, well-said.
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Of course people with low self-esteem are the ones who end up in psychiatric care; they have often been abused as children, rejected by partners, been unable to find jobs etc. difficult to have self-esteem in such circumstances. The “help” they get in psychiatric care is designed to snuf out every little bit of self-esteem they might have left-it is one long humiliation.
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Excellent comment. It is maddening that this is not understood.
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