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Summary: Yes, residential treatment can help people with schizophrenia learn practical skills to manage symptoms in a safe, compassionate, healing environment, and/or regain balance and stability during acute episodes of schizophrenia-related psychosis.

Key Points:

  • Residential treatment can help people with schizophrenia manage symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions.
  • Acute episodes of psychosis can severely impair daily function and disrupt relationships with friends and family.
  • Residential treatment can help people with schizophrenia understand the origin/cause of their symptoms.
  • Residential treatment can help people with schizophrenia develop the insight necessary to manage difficult thoughts, emotions, and behaviors associated with schizophrenia.

Residential Treatment: How it Helps Psychosis Associated With Schizophrenia

The symptoms of schizophrenia can become disruptive and frightening, especially during episodes of heightened severity. In some cases, people with schizophrenia lose their capability to tell the difference between things that are real and things that aren’t.

When that happens, hallucinations and delusions can cause several problems for a person with schizophrenia:

  • Speech, thoughts, and ideas may become incoherent
  • Emotions may become extreme and unpredictable.
  • They may say and do things that seem illogical or erratic.
  • They may develop paranoia/paranoid thoughts, and become wary/distrustful of family, friends, or other unidentifiable outside sources.

If a person has never received a diagnosis for a mental health disorder, the appearance of hallucinations and/or delusions, often called first episode psychosis, can be extremely disturbing. For someone who already has a schizophrenia diagnosis, the reappearance – or a sudden, unexpected increase in frequency/intensity – of symptoms may have a negative impact on self-esteem and the belief that treatment works and can help.

These two times may be when residential treatment can offer the most impactful help for people with schizophrenia: soon after a diagnosis, or during an acute episode or crisis at some point after their initial diagnosis and treatment experience.

Benefits of Residential Treatment for Schizophrenia

For a person with no previous history of schizophrenia, several things can trigger the onset of the disorder. Risk factors such as genetic predisposition and/or a family history of schizophrenia can increase the likelihood that these events will trigger the onset of schizophrenia or a first episode of psychosis:

  • Extreme stress, such as a job loss
  • Extreme emotion, such as a death in the family or a breakup/divorce
  • Substance use/misuse, most often associated with use of stimulants, psychedelics, or cannabis

For a person previously diagnosed with schizophrenia, the most common cause of a recurrence of symptoms, an acute psychotic episode, or a psychiatric emergency is choosing to stop taking antipsychotic medication.

Which brings us to the topic at hand: treatment for schizophrenia. Mental health experts agree – and decades of research support this position – that antipsychotic medication is the most effective treatment for schizophrenia.

Benefits of Antipsychotic Medication: Schizophrenia

For people with schizophrenia, antipsychotic medication can:

  • Decrease frequency and intensity of hallucinations
  • Decrease frequency and intensity of delusions
  • Help resolve disorganized thoughts, speech, and behavior
  • Restore ability to engage in daily activities
  • Decrease risk of relapse
  • Decrease likelihood of premature mortality

Treatment for schizophrenia with antipsychotic medication and psychotherapy can be effective at the outpatient level, but in some cases, residential treatment can improve and jumpstart the healing process. Residential treatment can facilitate the transition from crisis and confusion/fear associated with a new diagnosis to stability, reduced symptoms, and restored practical functioning more quickly than weekly or biweekly outpatient medication management and psychotherapy.

How does residential treatment help people with schizophrenia improve the healing process?

Components of Residential Treatment: Schizophrenia

During a residential program for schizophrenia, treatment includes:

  • Around the clock support from mental health professionals
  • Around the clock medical support and psychiatric observation
  • Full-time medication management
  • Professional counseling – individual and group – every day
  • Skilled, experienced full-time staff who understand schizophrenia

Benefits of Residential Treatment: Schizophrenia

Residential treatment can help people with schizophrenia by providing:

  • The time they need to experience and understand the benefits of antipsychotic medication
  • The time and space to prioritize healing and recovery without external influence and/or distraction
  • A break from problems in relationships with family and friends
  • Freedom from the stress of daily life and expectations of others

When a person with schizophrenia completes a residential treatment program, they may return home and experience significantly improved function a work, school, in relationships, and in social activities.  What this means is that residential treatment can help people with schizophrenia regain balance and improve quality of life in almost all important areas.

Treatment for Schizophrenia: Overview

A treatment plan for schizophrenia will most likely include antipsychotic medication, as we mention above. Modes of psychotherapy common in residential treatment may include:

  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): individual, family, group
  • Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): individual, family, group
  • Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): individual, family, group

Patients may also engage in complementary supports such as lifestyle coaching for nutrition, exercise, and activity, classes in stress management skills, therapeutic exercises like writing and visual art, and workshops in healthy relationship and communication skills.

Finding Help: Resources

If you or someone you know needs professional treatment and support for schizophrenia, please contact us here at Crownview Co-Occurring Institute.

For further assistance seeking and finding treatment for schizophrenia, please consult these helpful resources: