Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia: A Mother and Son Journey
Hot off the press from the New York Times. Talk of coincidences!
Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.
Doctors Abram Hoffer and Humphrey Osmond had a pronounced biochemical approach to alcoholism and schizophrenia. Their research showed niacin (vitamin B3) was an effective treatment in combination with vitamin C and other B-vitamins. Bill W. and A.A. had taken a more spiritual approach to the understanding of alcoholism, which had been derived from the teachings of the Oxford Group (later renamed Moral Rearmament).
Bill W. was introduced to these doctors in the 1950s, initially because of their work using LSD and mescaline on their schizophrenic and alcoholic patients in Saskatchewan. In the case of alcoholics they noticed that many who had once experienced an attack of delirium tremens swore off alcohol for good. Hoffer and Osmond thought that if they introduced LSD under controlled settings to alcoholics, it would give them a taste of what was in store for them if they continued to drink.
Bill W. at first resisted the idea of giving alcoholics more drugs, but later changed his mind. His thinking was not what Hoffer and Osmond were thinking, though. “It was not the material itself that actually produces these experiences. It seems to have the result of sharply reducing the forces of the ego — temporarily, of course. It is a generally acknowledge fact in spiritual development that ego reduction makes the influx of God’s grace
possible.”
Many psychiatrists at this time also acknowledged that a high percentage of alcoholics were also schizophrenics and reasoned that LSD was one way of shortening the long process of psychotherapy. I couldn’t agree more. Should we have to wait for a random chance encounter with God’s grace if there is some way we can experience it sooner?
The non-chemical experience that Chris has been undertaking recently with the sound shaman seems as close to LSD as you can get and still be legal. Chris tells me he feels happy, but he knows he doesn’t look especially happy and he is very unsure of what he wants. Chris these days reminds me of Aldous Huxley’s quote. “The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance but better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries forever, vainly, to comprehend.”
A.A. outside of Bill W. wasn’t keen to align itself with LSD. It was nonetheless a controversial drug and only became more so once it found its way into street use in the 1960s.
___________
From ‘PASS IT ON’ The story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world, Alcoholics Anonymous World Service, Inc. 1984, pg. 383-385.
Letter from Carl Jung in reply to Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, dated 30 January 1961, Kusnacht, Switzerland. Bill Wilson wrote a letter of appreciation to Carl Jung. “Very many thoughtful A.A.’s are students of your writings. Because of your conviction that man is something more than intellect, emotion, and two dollars’s worth of chemicals, you have especially endeared yourself to us . . . “
Dear Mr. Wilson,
Your letter has been very welcome indeed.
I had no news from Rowland H. anymore and often wondered what had been his fate. Our conversation which he has adequately reported to you had an aspect of which he did not know. The reason I could not tell him everything was that those days I had to be exceedingly careful of what I said. I found out that I was misunderstood in every possible way. Thus I was very careful when I talked to Rowland H. But what I really thought about was the result of many experiences with men of his kind.
His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God.*
How could one formulate such an insight in a language that is not misunderstood in our days?
The only right and legitimate way to such an experience is that it happens to you in reality, and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. You might be led to that goal by an act of grace or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond the confines of mere rationalism. I see from your letter that Rowland H. has chosen the second way, which was, under the circumstances, obviously the best one.
I am strongly convinced that the evil principle prevailing in this world leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition, if it is not counteracted either by a real religious insight or by the protective wall of human community. An ordinary man, not protected by an action from above and isolated in society, cannot resist the power of evil, which is called very aptly the Devil. But the use of such words arouse(s) so many mistakes that one can only keep aloof from them as much as possible.
These are the reasons why I could not give a full and sufficient explanation to Rowland H., but (I) am risking it with you because I conclude from your very decent and honest letter that you have acquired a point of view about the misleading platitudes one usually hears about alcoholism.
Alcohol in Latin in spiritus, and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum.
Thanking you again for your kind letter, I remain yours sincerely, C.G. Jung.
_________________
“* ‘As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.’ Psalm 42,1”
Letter reprinted in ‘PASS IT ON’ The story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world, Alcoholics Anonymous World Service, Inc. 1984, pg. 383-385.
Goddess Shift: Women Leading for a Change was published in February. People ask me how I managed to snag a chapter in a book in which mainly famous women are featured, women who have made reputations for themselves in fields as diverse as theatre, medicine, politics and writing. To answer that, I have to back up a few years, to when it began to dawn on me that what Chris and I were going through was something extraordinary. I was beginning to emerge from the crippling fear that had engulfed me, which coincided with my seeing that there was light at the end of the tunnel. This was not a sudden conversion experience, by the way. It was simply a recognition that there was some extraordinary help out there for schizophrenia that more people should be tapping into.
The question was, what could I do about this. I could light candles in a church or contribute money to a charity in appreciation, but I felt a bigger gesture was needed. Someone in an on-line group suggested that the best way to get the message out was through a book. That was a great idea, except that my writing skills were pretty rusty. However, I knew the story was compelling, so I started writing it all down. I fell into the new writer’s habit of relying on quotations from other people to begin every chapter, because I didn’t have confidence in my own voice.
One lunch hour while swimming laps, I got the bright idea to send my unwieldy unfinished manuscript to well-known holistic author and editor Stephanie Marohn. It was her book, The Natural Medicine Guide to Schizophrenia, that kick-started my awareness that there is a better way of looking at schizophrenia. She jettisoned all the quotes from other people (I favored rock lyrics)and tamed the document into something more manageable. I wrote some more, then sent it again to her for further editing. The book is almost finished once again, but the journey continues. Had I stopped it where I originally planned, there would be no recognition that relapse may sometimes be a necessary step and of the energetic healing power of music and vibration.
Stephanie Marohn is the editor of Goddess Shift. She has assembled an interesting group of woman contributors. Jean Shinoda Bolen, for example, is a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst who writes about feminine archetypes and the search for meaning. She is joined by Madonna, who explains what originally attracted her to study the Kabbalah. There is an interesting chapter by Frances Green, a New York lawyer who was once a nun. J.K. Rowling’s personal story may be too well known, but she contributes a moving insight into the value of failure. A lot of these women are controversial and many of us are prepared not to like them because we think we know them. When we write honestly about ourselves, as this book encourages us to do, we bridge our differences.
All royalties from Goddess Shift go to the following nonprofit organizations dedicated to improving the lives of girls and young women around the world:
The Global Fund for Women
Promotes women’s economic security, health, education, and leadership
Capacitar (Spanish for “To Empower”)
Teaching simple wellness practices in communities affected by violence, poverty and trauma
Tostan
Community-led development
From an interview with well-known neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr. Nancy Andreasen which appeared in Sept. 2008 in the New York Times:
Q. AND WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND?
A. I haven’t published this yet. But I have spoken about it in public lectures. The big finding is that people with schizophrenia are losing brain tissue at a more rapid rate than healthy people of comparable age. Some are losing as much as 1 percent per year. That’s an awful lot over an 18-year period. And then we’re trying to figure out why. Another thing we’ve discovered is that the more drugs you’ve been given, the more brain tissue you lose.
Q. WHAT EACTLY DO THESE DRUGS DO?
A. They block basal ganglia activity. The prefrontal cortex doesn’t get the input it needs and is being shut down by drugs. That reduces the psychotic symptoms. It also causes the prefrontal cortex to slowly atrophy.
Q. WHAT ARE THE POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF THIS FINDING?
A. Implication 1: that these drugs have to be used at the lowest possible dose, which often doesn’t happen now. There’s huge economic pressure to medicate patients very rapidly and to get them out of the hospital right away. Implication 2: we need to find other drugs that work on other systems and parts of the brain. Implication 3: whatever medications we use need to be combined with more nonmedication-oriented treatments, like cognitive or social therapies.
Where do we go from here? Dr. Andreasen, by her own admission, sat on her findings for two years. Findings, might I add, the substance of which consumers have been complaining about for years. Our opinion, of course, is considered “anecdote” by people smarter than we are, such as Dr. Andreasen. I can quibble about her findings, because there is also something called the “plastic brain” which is a concept that wasn’t in much vogue a decade ago. The plastic brain, unlike the brain set in concrete, is adaptive and will find solutions and neuronal pathways around problems.
If Dr. Andreasen’s research will stick for the next decade or so until it is overthrown by yet another biochemical explanation for mental illness, then the service she has provided is that she has armed you with “scientific information” from a well-know U.S. researcher that you can take to your doctor and demand either no drugs and better alternative treatments to help you through this, or else medications only for the period of crisis and in low doses.
The Bonkers Institute for Nearly Genuine Resarch provides a look at the drug-addled schizophrenic brain. Before you feel like ending it all when you see this image, keep in mind that the brain is plastic and that science is unreliable.
Give consumers the power of choice and we will generally opt for fewer and less costly medical interventions that have unproven efficacy yet known side effects.
From today’s New York Times: In Medicine, the Power of No logically should extend to mental health care.
The better bet for the new reformers — starting with Donald Berwick, the physician who will run Medicare — is to channel American culture, not fight it. We want the best possible care, no matter what. Yet we often do not get it because the current system tends to deliver more care even when it means worse care.
It’s not just CT scans. Caesarean births have become more common, with little benefit to babies and significant burden to mothers. Men who would never have died from prostate cancer have been treated for it and left incontinent or impotent. Cardiac stenting and bypasses, with all their side effects, have become popular partly because people believe they reduce heart attacks. For many patients, the evidence suggests, that’s not true.
Advocates for less intensive medicine have been too timid about all this. They often come across as bean counters, while the try-anything crowd occupies the moral high ground. The reality, though, is that unnecessary care causes a lot of pain and even death.
Dr. Abram Hoffer, the originator of niacin treatment for schizophrenia, believed that alcoholism was often a coping mechanism for latent schizophrenia. These two conditions, while on the outside may not have much in common, respond well to megadoses of niacin in combination with other vitamins. There is also a psycho/spiritual dimension that cannot be ignored in both. It is interesting, given that these two conditions have much in common, that programs like Alcoholics Anonymous have seen many success stories, while the same cannot be said for schizophrenia treatment programs.
A.A.’s growth and track record is due to some principles that were understood from the beginning. The founders recognized that in order to succeed in their work, A.A. had to be a volunteer organization, where alcoholics were there to counsel others as peers. They managed to secure some initial funding from J.D. Rockefeller, but Rockefeller and his associates were reluctant to fund them further, warning them to steer clear of the trap of “professionalism”. Money, it was felt, would spoil a good thing. Paid volunteers, according to A.A.’s members, would destroy trust.
The spiritual/religious dimension is a very strong part of A.A. Contrast this with schizophrenia, where religiosity is considered a symptom of psychosis to be chemically eliminated.
The treatment approach that came closest to A.A. for schizophrenia was Soteria, which relied on non-medical people to work closely with the patients. In fact, many people who have recovered from schizophrenia credit their recovery to someone who cared, who was able to empathize with them, perhaps someone who had been there himself. A.A. incidentally, deliberately preferred to staff the organization with recovered alcoholics, including medical doctors.
Today’s schizophrenia programs, by and large, are not success stories. They rely on paid medical staff (who, presumably, are not former schizophrenics), not counseling by peers. The doctor knows best, the patients’ personal life stories are considered irrelevant in the face of the “proven efficacy” of the biochemical model.
While making my way out the back door of the church on Easter Sunday, I picked up a discarded copy of PASS IT ON, the biography of Bill W., founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A. holds regular meetings in the basement of my church.
There is so much in this book. Bill W. was a failure at high school, at university, at business, but he was possessed of such a keen mind that he became successful on Wall Street in the 1920s as one of the first stock pickers, a niche job that was almost unheard of until he came along. Of course, he lost all of that many times over through a craving for alcohol. Rock bottom for him was tested on many occasions. His doctor said he would either die or be confined to a mental institution for the rest of his life. But still, he kept drinking.
An acquaintance of his had gone to Switzerland to seek help from Carl Jung. After a year of therapy and a subsequent relapse, he went back to see Jung who told him he would never beat this until he had a “spiritual awakening.” Belief in God was not enough. He advised him to align himself with a religious movement.
Bill W. was not very religious, but he sensed that spirituality was a missing element in his life. It was some time after this that he had what is called a conversion experience. He cried out during a particularly dark moment “If there be a God, let Him show Himself!” The room suddenly set ablaze with a white light and Bill W. experienced the same kind of ecstasy that was known to Teresa of Avila, Saul on the road to Damascus and others. He was 39 years old.
I “borrowed” this “incredibly eloquent submission by Joe Gutstein,” from The Trouble with Spikol. The full submission can be at found Liz Spikol’s blog. If you do nothing else today, she advises, read this. It underscores a favorite gripe of mine, that support groups and day programs undermine empowerment.
“Let’s imagine for a moment that you are long into the public mental health system. You have been in the hospital multiple times, in a couple of partial hospitalization programs, and have spent years in sheltered workshops and day programs. You’ve received the Prophecy of Doom, “Too sick for too long to get any better.” You’ve heard plenty of statements beginning with “You can’t, You won’t, and You will never.” You’ve been told endlessly that something is intrinsically (genetically) wrong with you and the only thing that will truly save you is a medication yet to be discovered. You’ve also been told that the most important thing you can do is get on SSI or SSDI in light of the prolonged and persistent nature of your illness. You’ve been told to engage in meaningful activities generally limited to walking, listening to music, and reading. You’ve been told countless times to avoid any stressors which might be associated with more rewarding activities and these stressors will doubtless lead to yet another hospitalization. You’ve been told so many things.”
. . .