{"id":947,"date":"2014-09-23T09:32:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T09:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/integralherbalism.wordpress.com\/?p=947"},"modified":"2014-09-23T09:32:19","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T09:32:19","slug":"happiness-in-schizophrenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/?p=947","title":{"rendered":"Happiness in Schizophrenia"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just ran into a very intriguing article \u201cHappiness in Schizophrenia -Research suggests mental illness doesn\u2019t preclude enjoying life,\u201d describing a recent stuyd published by researchers in the journal Schizophrenia Research.<\/p>\n

Happiness in Schizophrenia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/ucsdnews.ucsd.edu\/pressrelease\/happiness_in_schizophrenia<\/p>\n

What first struck me upon reading the article was the unconventional perspective the researchers were taking towards schizophrenia (and mental health in general). The idea in and of itself that a \u201csevere form of serious mental illness\u201d is not a life-sentence to but that there are actually concrete steps an individual can take to increase happiness is rather out of the ordinary! It shifts one from a \u201cglass half empty\u201d perspective of coping mechanisms and pharmaceuticals to a \u201cglass half full\u201d perspective with a positive orientation. Now this is patient empowerment at its best! Their suggestions are psychotherapies targeting positive coping factors such as resilience, optimism and personal mastery (I\u2019d suggest HeartMath), behavioral modifications, and mindfulness training.<\/p>\n

Instead of rehashing a brief article I\u2019m just going to put on my integral glasses for a second, looking at the 5 elements of AQAL, and make some quick observations to stimulate thought.<\/p>\n

Quadrants:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The authors conclude that:<\/p>\n

Level of happiness was NOT correlated with:<\/p>\n

UL: cognitive function, severity of positive or negative symptoms (unspecified), anxiety levels, mental health metrics, and cognitive function
\nUR: duration of illness, severity of positive or negative symptoms (unspecified), physical function, medical comorbidity, age, gender, medication status,
\nLR: sociodemographic characteristics, education, living situation (59% were in assisted living)<\/p>\n

Level of happiness was correlated with:<\/p>\n

UL: higher mental health-related quality of life and positive psychosocial factors: lower perceived, stress, higher resilience, optimism, and personal master, attitude toward aging, spirituality(unspecified).<\/p>\n

LL: spirituality (unspecified)<\/p>\n

I find the it interesting that the predominate impact were factors largely in the UL – interior-individual quadrant. The near-absence of the LL quadrant points to a blind-spot on the part of the researchers – the cultural context and meaning-making around \u201cmental illness\u201d and schizophrenia, interpersonal factors, and the quality of the support system (family, friends, care-givers). I\u2019d also be curious to know more about what they meant by spirituality. As a herbalist I\u2019d like to get some more specifics on the UR: nutrition, exercise, food intolerances, and a look at other possible psycho-physiological (mind-body) patterns.<\/p>\n

Types<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gender was controlled for.<\/p>\n

Now they may also be running into a type which may help understand further why some individuals \u201care happy\u201d and have the various \u201cpositive psychosocial factors\u201d and those who don\u2019t. Glass half empty vs glass half full is partially a personality trait and also learnable and trainable. As a herbalist I\u2019d like to get some ideas of how constitution relates. Is a given constitution more or less prone to being \u201cunhappy\u201d or \u201chappy,\u201d or is health and balanced constitution they key (I\u2019d venture this is more significant but that\u2019s just a hunch).<\/p>\n

States<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anxiety
\nCurrent severity of symptoms.
\nHappiness itself is a state – in this study they appear to be looking for a general affect over the course of a week.<\/p>\n

Levels<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was not looked at directly though age and cognitive function may provide very limited clues.<\/p>\n

Lines<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of the psychosocial factors are developmental lines (or types of intelligence) or involve lines: Cognitive, spirituality, stress perception and resilience, personal mastery, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just ran into a very intriguing article \u201cHappiness in Schizophrenia -Research suggests mental illness doesn\u2019t preclude enjoying life,\u201d describing a recent stuyd published by researchers in the journal Schizophrenia Research. Happiness in Schizophrenia. http:\/\/ucsdnews.ucsd.edu\/pressrelease\/happiness_in_schizophrenia What first struck me upon reading the article was the unconventional perspective the researchers were taking towards schizophrenia (and mental… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,39],"tags":[51,76,78,86,91,106,110,112],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health","category-psychotherapy","tag-aqal","tag-integral-health","tag-integral-theory","tag-mental-health","tag-mindfulness","tag-psychotherapy","tag-resilience","tag-schizophrenia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.integralherbalism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}