Psychosocial therapies and supports

Psychosocial therapies and supports help people to develop recovery skills, such as setting and achieving
goals (e.g., improving self-care, pursuing education, finding or changing a job). The choice of therapies
and supports will depend on your unique needs and on what is available in your community.

Community level
Work (Employment opportunities)
Work is central to the development of self-esteem and in shaping the social role of the mentally ill person,
and the following economic and societal observations suggest that the availability of employment may be
important for recovery from schizophrenia. Clinical research on people with schizophrenia also suggests
that work improves outcome from the illness.
In the developed world, outcome from schizophrenia is better among the higher classes in which
unemployment rates are low; but, in the developing world, outcome from schizophrenia is better among
the lower classes which maintain opportunities for employment in subsistence agriculture (World Health
Organization, 1979; Warner, 1994). (Richard Warner, 2011).

Myth Fact

Work is too stressful for people with SMI
The cognitive deficits associated with SMI are
insurmountable obstacles for most users who want
to work
Users have unrealistic and over- ambitious job
preferences which they often change
An American longitudinal study of people with
SMI found that at follow-up those who were
working had fewer symptoms and higher levels of
global functioning, self-esteem & financial
satisfaction than those who were unemployed
(Mueser et al., 1997)
Cognitive deficits are far more amenable to
intervention than previous thought (Wexler et al.,
1997)
Users’ job preferences are realistic and remain
stable (Becker et al., 1996)

This is to make an Independent employment. People with mental illness find jobs in the competitive
workforce, with or without the assistance of vocational staff.

 Ethiopia is one of the least developed countries in the world. In the meantime, we see the
mentally ill. They are employed and mentally fit citizens who are considered to be able to work in
terms of employment. There are also many legal gaps in labor and social affairs. People with
schizophrenia also suffer from high levels of unemployment and poor health.
 As a country, it will take time to solve the problem, but we need to do our part to ensure that
people with schizophrenia can work like any other citizen, from the local Woreda Job Creation
Office to the highest level of employment.
We need to make the community aware that there are people in the world who have schizophrenia but
who are creative and very talented. It is also our responsibility to identify the most gifted schizophrenia
patients and to contribute their talents to our community. Further work on the schizophrenia spectrum
could add greatly to our knowledge of creativity, both for clinical populations and for the population at
large. Beyond this, it can alert us generally, as earlier work on bipolar disorders has done (e.g., Andreasen
1987; Jamison, 1990; Richards & Kinney, 1990; Richards, Kinney, Lunde, et al., 1988),
 We would like to remind, as a university, to work with the Department of Special Needs to
establish specialized training for people with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, which
can play an important role in identifying and treating people with disabilities.

Clubhouses or Associations
Clubhouses are local community centers for people living with mental health issues. Members develop
skills and work closely with peers and support staff to run the daily operations of the clubhouse. They
prepare meals, build social connections, newsletters, track members’ participation and more. Supported.
Thus, the clubhouse can provide an opportunity to members for:
 There are many different associations in our country, some of which are patient associations.
These associations are based on the protection and support of people with similar disabilities,
from the treatment of human rights to the protection they need in every aspect of their lives. But it
does not usually appear to hit the target. Establishing a strong association for people with
schizophrenia and coordinating experts with the knowledge of the disease will help the people
living under its care to provide the necessary support to the victims in our country.
These are the activities that the association can do:
 Empowerment in social relations;
 expanded social networks
 An enhanced social environment and improved nutrition (for many of the members are likely to
lead isolated lives in single rooms with limited cooking facilities)
 Training in a variety of job skills, for example, clerical, computer use and food service
 Assessment of work functioning by job coaches
 Job placement
 On-the-job support from coaches and group contact at the clubhouse

Psychoeducation
Psychoeducation provides information to help people deal with a mental health condition, such as how to
manage symptoms and medication side-effects, and how to prevent relapse. It also provides information
on the recovery process, such as how to maintain a sense of well-being and how to develop skills to
manage stress and solve problems. Psychoeducation can be offered individually or in groups, and may be
tailored to the person with a mental health condition or to family members and friends.
The psycho education program content included:
• What is schizophrenia?
• Media images and misconceptions about schizophrenia
• Causes of schizophrenia
• Symptoms of schizophrenia
• Treatments for schizophrenia
• Medication
Stress and schizophrenia
• The stress-vulnerability model of schizophrenia
• What is stress, what stressors are there within a forensic setting?
• What stressors occur as a result of events outside of a forensic setting?
 • What influences stress
• Coping with stress
• Communicating more effectively
• Institutional life and its problems
Coping with schizophrenia
• Problem solving
• Coping with hallucinations
• Coping with delusions
• Coping with negative symptoms
• Recognizing early warning signs of relapse
• Adapting to long-term effects of symptoms

 In our case in Ethiopia, the awareness of psychological problems is very low and our
community's understanding of the issue is insignificant. Schizophrenia is one of our major mental
health problems, and there is no knowledge of how it occurs and what solutions are offered after
it occurs. Therefore, we psychologists need to do our part in mobilizing the community and
educating the victims.
 From the time we were at the university, when we took courses related to mental illness, there
were some well-established teaching and practice tests, which means we can save and solve
existing problems in the community. Adequate awareness can also be created for the community.

Peer support
Peer support Workers are people with lived experience of a mental health condition who are trained to
provide support that is based on empathy and understanding. Having gone through their own personal
recovery, peer support workers are able to help you plan and move through the steps of your own
recovery. Support focuses on your strengths, rather than the illness, and on self-empowerment, self-
advocacy and promoting hope. Peer support workers are important members of the treatment team. Peer
support may be available one-on-one or in groups