Early recovery from Psychotic Spectrum Disorder within a therapeutic community: Significance and effects

Abstract

Recovery narratives and research studies increasingly depict psychosis as a recovery-able condition. Though many interventions have shown efficacy in treating aspects of psychosis, it remains complex and too often disabling. The limited efficacy, cost, recidivism rate and side effects of medications further spur the search for complementary interventions. Psychosocial approaches have been increasingly shown efficacious, and emerging policy and treatment guidelines encourage their integration with traditional psychopharmacology. This study reports initial results of an integrated, recovery-based therapeutic community approach to facilitating recovery for individuals with psychotic spectrum disorder diagnoses. One hundred and four residents completed nine measures representing three different definitions/facets of recovery at baseline and three months. Almost all participants (97%) entered the program on antipsychotic medication, suggesting that subsequent progress was not solely due to medication. Progress in the direction of recovery was seen on all but two measures. This progress was generally statistically significant and of small to moderate effect size which compared favorably with literature results, suggesting the potential of this integrated program in supporting early recovery for individuals with these challenges.