CLINICAL HANDBOOK OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

CHAPTER 30SELF-HELP ACTIVITIESFREDERICK J. FRESE IIIMy personal experiences with schizophrenia have been published elsewhere (Frese,1993, 2000, 2004). In brief, over 40 years ago, in early 1966, when I was first hospitalizedwith schizophrenia, the world for those of us with serious mental illness was verydifferent from the way it is now. At that time psychodynamic thinking still dominatedpsychiatric care. Sigmund Freud’s picture, as well as his books, was usually prominentlyon display in most psychiatrists’ offices.Antipsychotic medications, then called major tranquilizers, had only recently becomeavailable, and there were no medications to help ameliorate their anguishing sideeffects.The heyday of lobotomies, when over 5,000 of these operations were performedannually on persons with mental illness in the United States, was beginning to pass, butthese procedures were still being administered in some parts of the country (Valenstein,1986). And electroshock treatments were regularly being administered to persons withschizophrenia. I personally observed the threat of their use employed as a patient controlmechanism far too frequently.In the decade after my initial hospitalization, I found myself at different times as anunwilling inpatient in various military, Veterans Administration, county, state, and privatehospitals, in some six different states. During these various adventures, I was almostcompletely unaware of any activities that could be characterized as self-help for mentallyill persons. The one experience with self-help that I did experience during those difficulttimes occurred when I was in a private psychiatric hospital in the Cleveland area in 1974.I was asked if I would be interested in attending an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetingthat was being held on the hospital grounds. Although I did not consider myself to have adrinking problem, an assertion with which my therapist said he agreed, I did take thetime to attend one of these AA meetings. I remember feeling that I had very little in commonwith the other attendees, and, as a result, I did not attend again. But I do rememberwondering whether some sort of similar group might someday be available for personswith serious mental illnesses who did not have alcohol or other substance abuse problems.Despite living with schizophrenia and being subject to periodic breakdowns duringthe past four decades, I have been able to carve out a career for myself as a psychologist,serving persons who, like myself, live with one or another form of serious mental illness.298