How would you reason with a schizophrenic who thinks ppl are out to get him?

Question

Basically that people are coming to take him away?

Answer 1

More often than not a schizophrenic will not go to a doctor of his or her own accord. Usually family or friends are the ones who manage to get the person undergoing a psychosis to get medical help. The burden frequently rests on the ones closest to the psychotic. They are the only ones willing to put up with all the hurt, pain and trouble a schizophrenic puts his or her family and friends through.

How do we help someone undergoing a deep schizophrenic experience? Experience will tell us that most psychotics live in a world unto themselves with a blind eye and ear towards the ones trying to help them. In most cases the psychotic is not aware that he or she is ill and that is certainly not all there is to the story.

Schizophrenia is a multidimensional world full of horrors and imagination. To the psychotic a new world has opened up. They are undergoing a deep labor of the psyche. We would do a schizophrenic wrong in just labeling them as ill. For that the visionary power of the experience is too much filled with myth and symbolism which is understandable to anybody taking the time and effort to understand what exactly is going on. A psychosis is an in depth individuation process where the person is undergoing most likely an extreme form of ego death and renewal.

Schizophrenia is a deep world unto itself. The person undergoing a psychosis is imbedded probably in hearing voices, whether this person is conscious of it or not, hallucinations, delusions and  visions. This inner life creates a world which is completely separate from the world non-psychotics live in. Reality for the psychotic has been changed and transformed.

Very often schizophrenics hear and see conflicting things; the good and the bad; damning voices for example, as well as beautiful hallucinations, colors and sounds. Frequently schizophrenics create a story within their own psyche and mind. They have people, imaginary or real-imaginary ones, with who they are in a dialogue. Often a schizophrenic will conjure up an internal dialogue where persecution, enemies and friends populate the psyche, as is shown in the film “A Beautiful Mind”.

For these reasons it is very difficult for an outsider, even if this maybe family or friends, to enter the field of consciousness of a psychotic. Often the ones trying to contact the schizophrenic, family members and friends, have been implicated in a hallucination the schizophrenic is undergoing: They are either part of a group that is trying to harm them or trying to help them and so forth.

A family member or friend trying to get through to a schizophrenic needs to be prepared for an in depth journey into the psyche of another person. Trying to access the schizophrenic from outside of his or her mind set will not work. The basis of any relationship is trust and love. So too it is with a schizophrenic. You need to gain the trust and love of the person undergoing a schizophrenic experience.

How can you do this? By offering trust and love yourself. Be there for the psychotic, no matter how trying they might be. Take them not just as an ill person, but as someone undergoing a deep labor of the psyche with a need to  communicate this state with a loved one. Take the person for real. Try and understand the mental and psychic world the person is living in. Try and find out the story the person is living through. What is the story of the hallucination, the vision, the delusion? Who are the characters involved? Who in the mind of the schizophrenic is trying to harm or help them?

Participate in the story. Say that you will help fend of the threats, help along with the friends. Be loving and warm. Accept the person in front of you as someone undergoing a real psychic experience and labor like in dream work.

Gaining the trust of a psychotic might be no easy task. Often psychotics can be very harsh, they push away the ones they love, and they stop trusting relatives and friends. If you are trying to get in touch emotionally with a schizophrenic be prepared to take a lot of blows.

If you want to convince the person going through a psychosis to see a doctor, don’t say: “You have to see a doctor”. But try it another way. Perhaps you can say that you want to see a friend who can help with getting rid of the enemy figures for example. Try and find a psychiatrist who is loving and warm, someone who will also enter the story of the individual and not someone who will just diagnose “mental illness” and prescribe some pills. If you want to try to get a psychotic to take medication, also try and do this in a loving manner and from within the story the schizophrenic is living through. Don’t say: “you are sick and need medication”, but try and explain that this medication will strengthen one in warding off pain, evil or whatever the trauma is the person is undergoing. Most schizophrenics are very sensitive people and they respond like seismographs to the feelings with which they are presented.

Be sure that you have found a doctor who will talk with the schizophrenic and won’t just do his or her diagnose and then follow up with a prescription. This won’t be an easy task because it is an unspoken rule within traditional medicine to not enter the mind set of a psychotic, since it is all considered “crazy” anyway. Try and find a Jungian therapist near you or another therapist or doctor who accepts the schizophrenic as a full fledged person in his or her own rite.

Dealing with schizophrenia is a labor of love for the schizophrenic as well as for family members and friends. Often the person undergoing the psychosis will have visions of love and will be very sensitive towards anything that has to do with emotions, even if this might not seem so to an outside observer. Psychotics often reinvent universal love and with a caring partner they can exteriorize this movement of the psyche. A loving understanding and in depth participation on the part of the one who wants to help is often the first step in aiding a schizophrenic in his or her first steps towards betterment.

Answer 2

You sound very naive. You don't reason with someone with a serious mental disorder. You can try, but you will lose the battle.  

Answer 3

Forget it. There isn't a way to reason with them. The only thing you can do it make sure that he/she is taking the meds prescribed.

Answer 4

You can't. He is convinced that they are out to get him.  Having worked in Mental Health; I would suggest getting him professional help and meds that can help control the voices and grandiose thinking.

Answer 5

put on a barney costume and say "hey i love you" come here  

Answer 6

You have to reassure him that there is no one out to get him and if there are then you, personally, will stop them from coming.

Make sure that he is taking his meds and that you see a doctor as soon as possible.  If things get really serious and he begins to hallucinate badly then, if you are in USA, call the police.  If you are in another country take him to an ER to get checked.

Answer 7

Its hard to reason with someone whose perceptions are so distorted. He will think you are lying to him

However, persons with any illness deserve the truth. Gently explain to him that one of the features of his illness is a feeling of paranoia. And that he is safe.

Answer 8

its a lost cause. all you can do is love them

Answer 9

Sadly -- if he is not on medication, you cannot reason with him.  You might as well be talking in a different language.  He is just not tuning in to what you are saying simply because he can't.  

I think that this disease is one of the worst there is but there is medications although I understand there are some unpleasant side effects.  But until he is treated, you won't be able to get through.  I believe someone else said this -- you can only love him.  But please be careful.

Good Luck! You are in my prayers.