Schizophrenia Drug-free Crisis Centre & Helpline

Soul-centred & Drug-free Psychiatry

Crisis Support for Sufferers & Relatives

Referrals & Advice on Natural Therapies

Courses & Training for Crisis Care Work

Schizophrenia . . . Soul in Crisis

The healing of schizophrenia as 'soul in crisis' cannot be bottled into pills, or learned out of a textbook. It is an art requiring care and heart. What works, makes sense, re-empowers and heals, is what helps by sufferers' own accounts. And what heals is compassionate, non-coercive, soulful therapy, which recognises that growth can occur through psychosis, or 'spiritual emergency', as a natural process of 'dis-integration' which can lead to rebirth. As well, the scapegoating of more and more people as 'mentally ill', diverts from any serious cultural criticism. Much so-called 'mental illness', for example, can be seen as a reflection of cultural sickness, or 'soul loss' and ironically, as a reaction against a soulless medical model.

The Schizophrenia Crisis Centre & Helpline was founded in Adelaide, South Australia in 1998, to respond to an ever-growing number of sufferers and relatives who are seeking natural, healing, caring, soulful and re-empowering alternatives to hospitals, incarceration and (often forced) drug-based 'treatment' for schizophrenia.

So . . . What is Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is an acute psychospiritual crisis, involving personality fragmentation (as a necessary prelude to self-rebirthing), turning inward, a loss of a sense of self, and extreme empathy and sensitivity to surroundings. There is no medical proof that schizophrenia is a 'brain disease', or 'chemical imbalance'.

Do Psychiatric Drugs Cure Schizophrenia?

"After two decades, it is now clear that antipsychotic drugs do not cure schizophrenia. It is also clear that they have serious, sometimes irreversible toxicities, that recovery may be impaired by them in at least some schizophrenics, and that they have little effect on long-term psychosocial adjustment."

~ Prof. Loren Mosher, MD Clinical Director: San Diego County Mental Health Services, CA

"All psychoactive substances have rebound and withdrawal-related problems. Relapse rates, in general, during withdrawal from psychiatric drugs, are about 10 times higher than would be expected if the drug had never been taken. All biopsychiatric treatments share a common mode of action - the disruption of normal brain function. They never improve the brain. They "work" by impairing the brain and dampening feelings in various ways."

~ Dr Douglas Smith, MD Psychiatrist

"It has occurred to me with forcible irony that psychiatry has quite literally lost its mind, and along with it the minds of the patients they are presumably supposed to care for . . . . I believe that significant harm is being done to patients under the guise of modern psychiatric treatment" "Biologic psychiatry as it exists today is a dogma that urgently needs to be unmasked."

~Dr David Kaiser, MD Psychiatrist

What Natural Therapies are Available for Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia as a personal and spiritual crisis can be worked through with any combination of natural therapies, including Jungian psychiatric approaches, shamanic healing, residential crisis care, homeopathy, acupuncture, Bach Flower remedies, vitamins, minerals, tissue salts, amino acids and herbs. The Schizophrenia Crisis Centre can provide further information and referrals to reliable practitioners.

What Sufferers & Relatives Say

"Dear Dr Roberts, Thank you so much for the wonderful information you have provided through your website. My son has spent 4 months in hospital diagnosed with schizophrenia. If the treatment he was given had worked, we would be satisfied that all was well, but he is no better now, 10 months after diagnosis. We are concerned about the effect of the medications and can't find a way out of the drug treatment he is on. He is still inactive and socially withdrawn, but now the medication sedates him. We have no confidence that the drugs will help in the long run, and feel they will possibly be very harmful. Our son's behaviour leads us to believe he may be experiencing a spiritual crisis." `~ Denise [N.S.W.]

"I came across the Schizophrenia Helpline page on the internet, and for perhaps the first time I feel I have found some information that resonates with what I have always believed concerning schizophrenia. I have been torn between wanting to urge my mother to take medication, and empathizing with her own feelings (denying that the medication works). I have always felt suspicious of traditional clinical treatment of 'mental illnesses' like these. I feel that your approach is exactly what I have been looking for. " ~ Seth Irvine, CA 92714

"I have been recently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and am currently being treated by mainstream therapies. I am forced to take medication, but object to taking any mind-altering substances. I believe in your alternatives. I do not like mainstream treatment because all they do is drug patients with toxic drugs. I have no confidence in my psychiatrists and have not opened up to them to tell them of my experiences." ~ Frank [Victoria, Australia]

Dr Roberts, Could it be that many of these doctors are as sick as the patients they are trying to help, but just don't know it? Schizophrenia, one symptom in a long list of symptoms brought on by a sick world. I read your summary on schizophrenia and related to it completely. " ~ Steve [schizophrenia sufferer, Canada]

"I have been diagnosed as schizophrenic by psychiatrists. I have been out of hospital and have not taken any medication for 2 years. The psychiatrist is now trying to force me to take medication. I have practised spiritual and shamanic teachings and am trying to avoid having my body and mind polluted by these chemicals. They say they are 'caring' for me. Is there any help I can get to put an end to these people chasing after me and trying to 'treat' me? I am a very gentle person; I meditate everyday and just want the people on this world to be more spiritually minded. The psychiatrist is trying to justify this as being my 'illness'." Todd [Adelaide]

Training & ReEducation

Training will soon be available for any concerned persons, non-professional and professional, who would like to work in future, non-coercive residential crisis care for psychotic individuals. US Crisis Homes of this kind have proven to be more successful, humane and re-empowering to sufferers than hospital and drug-based 'treatment'. Anyone can be trained, so long as they are caring, tolerant, enthusiastic, non-authoritarian and non-judgmental. Contact the Schizophrenia Crisis Centre if you are interested.

Where To Go From Here

Contact the Schizophrenia Crisis Centre if you would like to make an initial appointment. Typically, a first consultation, which lasts for at least an hour, involves exploring a sufferer's personal story in a quiet, safe and soulful setting, addressing their unique needs and concerns, and re-evaluation from a soul-centred psychiatric perspective (bearing in mind that many folk are wrongly diagnosed as 'schizophrenic'.) Sufferers are treated with sensitivity, kindness and respect, and demeaning terms such as 'mentally ill', 'delusional', 'disturbed', or 'abnormal' are never used. The therapist and sufferer work together to discover whatever 'journey toward reintegration' is helpful and healing to the sufferer. The Schizophrenia Crisis Centre can provide you with further details of helpful psychospiritual therapies and with referrals to helpful books, practitioners, websites and published articles.

How You Can Help

The Schizophrenia Crisis Centre & Helpline receives no funding of any kind, in spite of repeated requests for Government aid. If you would like to support our largely voluntary work, please send a donation to the Mental Health ReEducation & Human Rights Network [Aust.] Inc. at PO Box 7205 Hutt St, Adelaide SOUTH AUSTRALIA 5000. As well, please contact us if you would like to make your home, or venue available for a support and study group for schizophrenia sufferers, carers, friends, therapists and relatives. Phone or e-mail us and provide a postal address and we will be happy to send you some printed information.

Highly Recommended:
Long interview with Jungian Psychiatrist Dr John Weir Perry on drug-free
therapy for schizophrenia (as a spiritual crisis):
http://www.global-vision.org/papers/JWP.pdf

Don't Scoff at the Cuckoos: You May Be a Cuckoo Too [The Amazing Implications of Schizophrenia] Castle Hill, NSW (Aust.), MBS Books, 1995, 205pp. by John Herbert