Seeking life beyond psychosis
Dr John Farhall.
Psychological researchers are probing whether people can learn to accept and let go of their demons.
The film A Beautiful Mind is a billed as ‘offering hope, while showing the honest pain of mental illness’. Russell Crowe plays maths genius John Nash who has schizophrenia, but despite the hellish experiences of this mental illness, he eventually learns to distance himself from his demons – and wins a Nobel Prize.
Nash is a rare case, but one in five Australians, says La Trobe psychologist, Dr John Farhall, will develop a mental illness at some point in their lives – and the University is now trialling what he describes as a ‘world-first research project’ to help sufferers get on with life.
Called ‘Lifengage’, it involves two therapies to help sufferers of psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia live with symptoms of their psychosis that have not responded to medication.
‘For example, hearing voices or feeling paranoid oft en persist and have huge financial and emotional costs for the sufferer,’ says Dr Farhall.
It is estimated that three people in a hundred Australians will develop psychosis in their lives, and the trial is taking a step away from traditional therapy methods by looking at how people can live with symptoms, instead of getting rid of them.
‘That is the interesting thing about the trial. Neither therapy is focused on making the symptoms go away. Rather they represent different pathways for assisting the participants to get on with their life,’ says Dr Farhall, principal investigator for Lifengage.
He says the two therapies being trialled are called ‘Acceptance and Commitment Therapy’ (ACT) and ‘Befriending’.
‘ACT helps sufferers by engaging with their symptoms in a different way from their usual therapy. Instead of talking about symptoms that are difficult to change, clients learn how to leave them aside and get on with things they value.’
One exercise is called ‘tug-o-war with a monster’, where the therapist is the ‘monster’ and the client acts out their mental struggle with their symptoms using a beach towel. The client is then able to notice how they can’t do anything else at the same time, and then is invited by the therapist to ‘let go’ of the struggle.
Befriending, on the other hand, is about building a relationship, or friendship, with the therapist, where people can focus on the good things in their life, such as hobbies or interests, rather than on the negatives, such as their symptoms, which oft en dominate their lives. With many people having limited social contact, the therapy gives them an opportunity to become more familiar and confident in talking to someone and getting on with their lives.
Dr Farhall hopes both the participants’ well-being, and science, will benefit from the project.
‘We are trying to improve the quality of the life for the participants, as well as trying to understand which of these two under-researched therapies will provide better results.’
The research team plans to recruit about 100 people who have been diagnosed with a psychotic illness and are still experiencing distressing symptoms or problems, despite medication. So far around 30 people have agreed to be part of the trial and are in various stages of assessment, therapy, or follow-up sessions.
The three-year trial is being funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council aft er which the researchers hope to extend it through further sponsorships.
The therapy is being offered at La Trobe University’s main Melbourne campus at Bundoora and also in conjunction with public mental health services including St Vincent’s Health, Southern Health, Melbourne Health and Mercy Mental Health which cover most of the greater Melbourne area.
Dr Farhall’s post at La Trobe is a joint appoint with North Western Mental Health, designed to build bridges between public mental health services and university research and training in clinical psychology.