About Ron Unger
I am a licensed clinical social worker and therapist who works with people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, using a respectful and skill building approach called cognitive therapy for psychosis. I also talk and teach seminars related to this approach,
About my life experience that got me interested in this field: I have a number of family members who have been hospitalized for “mental illness” including psychosis, and I myself have had experiences that might have earned me a “psychosis” type of label, had I been spotted by the mental health system at the time!
My story is told in more detail on this page, or check out this interview that was also posted on Psycope.
Contact information for me:
541-513-1811 1257 High St., Suite 7, Eugene OR 97401 4ronunger at gmail.com You can look here for more information about my therapy practice in Eugene Oregon. I don’t practice therapy to people who live at a distance over the phone or Skype, but I do offer “distance” consultations to mental health workers, with the same low rates for individuals or for groups, using the phone or using internet with Adobe Connect. Contact me for more information about that.
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
I totally agree with you that it is life experiences. I do not in anyway believe I was born schizophrenic. I agree with u there. I believe I was born to be more attractive to females over males though. I agree with that part of your treatment but I do not agree with the mad pride movement and that we need to embrace the mental disorder.
Ron,
Are you a practicing Scientologist?
Andrew
Visit my Bipolar News Site…
Hi Andrew,
I noticed I never answered this. There are people who think that anyone who disagrees with any common psychiatric practice must be a scientologist, perhaps because they think psychiatrists make so much sense that no one without a cultish perspective such as scientology would even consider questioning them?!
To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t even ever had an extended conversation with a scientologist, and I certainly am not one myself. I don’t like dogma and irresponsible authorities, and as I understand it scientology has both.
I also am not against all of psychiatry. There are some psychiatrists who I admire and respect. That said, I think much of what is common practice in psychiatry is both dishonest and destructive, and I hope we can replace it with methods that better serve people and their health.
Ron,
I appreciate your responding to the question.
This is a way that those who are against any discussion of alternatives can quickly dismiss those of us who have differing views.
I am not a scientologist either, although have grown quite tired of the failed one-size-fits all paradigm of care (drugs, drugs, and more drugs). It’s caused great harm and injury to many.
I liked your answer.
Thanks,
Duane
I myself am fully cured of what was called a ‘delirious paranoid schizophrenia’ – in Italy – with the help of several years of a psychodynamic psychotherapy.
what is psychodynamic psychotherapy?
To get a definition of “psychodynamic psychotherapy” you could check out wikipedia’s definition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychodynamic_psychotherapy
Ron and readers,
I hope you might take a few minutes to read something…
It’s a vision… to reform the mental health system -
http://discoverandrecover.wordpress.com/mental-health-freedom-and-recovery-act/
My best,
Duane
Hi Duane, thanks for sharing your impressive vision! I’ve been working alongside some consumer/survivors on something much more limited for our local county mental health system, which you can have a look at here.
Ron,
My best with your efforts with the local county system…
It seems we’re on the same page!
They say that all politics is local.
I find myself cheering every time there’s a local victory, and I hope you the very, very best!
Thank you for offering a different theory than the “biological model”…. my thoughts are that the psychiatric label, the drugs, telling people they will never recover… could there be any worse form of “treatment?”… we should all start calling it what it is – “mistreatment!”
I agree with what you say about those doing the best tossing out the medical model… and I love your expression, “life model.” Good stuff!
Duane
Ron my daughter was hospitalized in 2003 for depression put on a antipsychotic medication came out of the hospital full blown delusional. Not one of the pdocs disclosed any side effects of these meds. She’s never been the same..
Carol
I totally agree with you that it is life experiences. I do not in anyway believe I was born schizophrenic. I agree with u there. I believe I was born to be more attractive to females over males though. I agree with that part of your treatment but I do not agree with the mad pride movement and that we need to embrace the mental disorder.
+1
long years was looking for clear description of full recovery and clear explanation of diference between full recovery and living with medication: “better life”! Myself: i am without medication more than 10 years and for 5 years or more fear about psychaitric treatment needed has gone. That is much about to “find way out”! In my environment i know only one person who overcame his mental illness fully (he had 18 hospitalizations in 8 years! ) and he did more: he managed to overcome his diabetes with treatment of 3 insulin injections per day and other tablets in 3 years – he must follow his strict diet and physical exercise very attentively – but he is the master of his own life now! That is about my Lithuanian peers – not about survivors that i know in Europe or world. I believe there are more survivors in Lithuania then us 2 – but i haven’t found them yet. Such thing stigma is!
Thank you very very much for this website and knowledge found there!
Ron,
my daughter started experiencing psychosis in 2009, was diagnosed with bi polar in May of 2010 and often displays signs of ‘scizophrenia’ .She was never suicidal and always gentle as a lamb. When she was hospitalized, restrained and forcibly drugged with anti psychotics, she became violent, more psychotic, paranoid, persistently delusional, and has never been the same since. In fact, she has been rehospitalized three times, most recently for full blown catatonia which I believe may have been the result of her withdrawal from benzodiazapine (carbamazine, sp?) although this opinion was derided by the neurologist who complained about the internet spreading all this false information, because it gave lay people like me all kinds of funny ideas, etc. I truly believe that she is now much worse than before the time when she started to receive conventional psychiatric treatment. When they started recommending ECT, for my daughter, the lioness mother in me finally started to wake up and roar. They didn’t even know my daughter and how quickly they discounted known side effects of ECT such as memory loss. By golly, those are precious memories in there! The good ones and the bad ones. In fact, her memories may be the key to her full recovery! Thank God, we heard about different treatment approaches such as cognitive behavior therapy and meditation for people with psychosis and the novel idea of asking psychotic patients about their feelings, and life trauma’s, including the trauma of involuntary hospitalization. Thank God for my daughter having the courage to defy a court order, her parents (including me her mother), her doctor’s recommendations, just about everyone involved in her care by declining the medicinal cocktail that she had been told to take everyday which was literally turning her into a drooling, shuffling zombie. I know that my daughter will have to make a long and difficult journey to recovery, especially if she continues to avoid taking prescription drugs and that there will be many pitfalls along the way and possibly relapses. But I will never again assume that my daughter’s mental illness makes her unfit to make personal decisions about her treatment or that she cannot be trusted to be the primary leader in her recovery. I now support and honor her decision whether she feels that she needs to take the prescription drugs, ask for different dosages or brands, or cease taking drugs all together. As parents of young adults with mental illnesses, of course, we want to coddle our children, protect them from all harm, risk, and unhappiness. But unfortunately, life is full of risk and mentally ill individuals whether fair or not have been dealt an extremely hard hand. If we truly want our loved ones to recover from mental illness, we have to learn to let go and let them navigate some of life’s hardships on their own terms. As their parents we should coach them and instruct them in how to communicate effectively with their medical care providers and encourage them to be empowered as consumers, not docile as lambs. Why are we so afraid of offending doctors anyway and so quick to give them god like status? HEALING IS AN ART NOT A SCIENCE. The patient and the patients family brings a lot to the table and if a doctor doesn’t respect this then get another doctor even if you have to go through the entire phone book!
Thank you for offering badly needed alternatives and genuine hope and compassion not just for mentally ill people but their families as well. Since discovering the alternative movement, for the first time, I feel hope for my daughter’s genuine recovery. We finally are beginning to see that we have the capacity to help our daughter build a support network, while approaching her recovery in a way that fully integrates and recognizes her physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual needs. Knowing when to recognize the limits of conventional psychiatric treatment is a huge leap forward for our family on this journey and we appreciate what leaders like you bring to our community.
sarah smith: I enjoyed reading your comment. Your daughter is lucky to have a mother like you.
Hardship: I think, life without hardship wouldn’t be life. Hardship is what makes us wish and work for transformation, and life is – constant – transformation. But since we aren’t afraid of anything else as much as we’re afraid of the unknown, we do whatever we can to prevent not so much hardship – as we like to think – but the awareness of it, and the transformation this awareness potentially brings about. While the majority stays unaware, making use of non-prescription/illegal drugs like alcohol, pot, junk food, nicotine… all kinds of more or less toxic substances, but also through “drugs” in a metaphorical sense, like TV, the internet, and the like, that, if used to kill time, and/or support a certain, more or less delusional, belief system (like biopsychiatry’s for instance) only, do nothing but help us avoid having to face ourselves, psychiatry’s task is to collar those for whom all these drugs don’t work anymore, whose unconscious rebels against the collective unawareness, and to drug, shock and brainwash them back into unawareness, if necessary forcibly.
“Psychosis” opened my eyes to a lot of (my) life’s hardship. All the hardship that I’d been asked to ignore, and be silent about. Before “psychosis”, my “life” had been characterized by what you might call a profound deadness. “Psychosis” had me for the first time in my life feel truly alive. I wouldn’t want to trade that feeling away for anything in the world. Not even the most intense anger, sadness, despair, and/or confusion, realizing all the hardship, feels as devastating as the deadness did.
I like what Wayne Dyer says about his traumatic childhood: “It was just perfect.” The extremely hard hand he, too, had been dealt, was what made it possible for him to become aware. And I think, what we need to do, if we really want to help people in crisis, is to, first and foremost, face our own hardships, become aware of them, and deal with them. As long as the helpers are too afraid to face themselves, as long as they resort to drugging themselves into oblivion, they won’t be able to help anyone.
A gift to my doctors and to yours.
The Aesculapian
Who follows Aesculapius shall have his life allotted thus:
His door shall nor latch nor key, his couch lend no security,
His wife shall have but half a mate, His dinner hour be always late.
While others walk the sunny street, years after year his weary feet
Shall tread the Vale of Shadows grim, where men and women cling to him;
And all their travail shall he share, all grief endure, all burdens bear.
He shall keep watch while others sleep, shall hold his tears while others weep,
With nerves as true as tempered steel, that feeling dare not seem to feel,
With steady hands that dare not quake, to play the game of Life at stake.
He shall keep nightly tryst with Worry, his life long slogan–”I must hurry”,
His hours, the day and night together, nor shall he stop for stormy weather;
Nor wedding feast nor banquet hall shall hold him when there comes a call.
Men rise and fall in petty strife–his is the war of Death and Life,
Ruthless the foe that he must meet, the foe that never knows defeat,
The foe, that making truce today, returns tomorrow to the fray.
Of kings the master, yet the slave of worthless wight and hapless knave;
Squalor, more squalid in disease, the prince, plague stricken, on his knees,
Dotard and child on him shall call, and he shall hear and heed them all.
Far more than mere anatomy his penetrating eye shall see–
The strength and courage of the weak, the innate boldness of the meek,
And, even as the gods, divine how vice and virtue intertwine.
Who follows Aesculapius shall Dives know and Lazarus–
Shall chide and chasten, christian, shrive, keep fear at bay, keep hope alive,
Give to the new-born babe its breath, and fold the frigid hands of Death.
Such is his lot. And what reward will humankind, at last, accord?
Some one, perhaps, he once relieved of pain, before his bier bereaved
Shall bow, and on a stone may limn: Death beat, but could not conquer him.
by
E .O. Laughlin
–
Keri Stockton
That article you linked to –in your article–about Ginsberg is false. I read it and asked Seth Farby about if he knew about it. He sent me assurance he does and shows it to be false. If you like I will share the info with you.
Juliano, I’m not sure how your comment ended up here, since it refers to my article http://recoveryfromschizophrenia.org/2011/01/trauma-psychosis-and-spirituality-whats-the-connection/ which has its own comment section.
But I just wanted readers to know that I did write to Juliano and requested more information. I also looked around a bit on the web, and found articles that referenced Ginsberg being in a different mental institution, but didn’t mention him being in Rockland. So maybe the article I linked to was wrong only in regard to which institution Ginsberg had been placed in?
The resolution of past experience or trauma had everything to do with my cure.
So in a strange way, if SZ people have a very negative upbringing like myslef they might be better off as the psychotherapy experience will cure can them., I suspect that teaching SZ people to express and own anger is fundamental for all types , not just my type.
It goes against Canon and precisely for that reason, I think not many SZ are getting cured. It takes a tough, courageous and skilled person to know how to do this. SZ is a disease of the emotions so IMO SZ need emotional therapy not “talk” therapy.For that emotions need to be strengthen and the others can’t come until the fear is deal with and anger is learned , embraced and used.
Fortunately my former psychotherapist was from the holocaust and was tough enough for the job.
Good Luck!
So I need to ask you this question.
Do you practice exercises to help SZ express anger?
Specifically invite the SZ to participate in the exercise demonstrated in group process. It’s much better in group because the SZ or another type can see the process. They will most likely have initial fear of participation, so the setup is they have to first initiate the action by agreeing or requesting the the exercise. Setting up a challenge to face and overcome here can be useful.
Groups are best , perhaps one on one will work., I have no experience with that in one on one.
…
The exercise, simply knelling on the floor, hitting a cushion with the fist, then adding sound then replying to a few questions.
Anger is facilitate and there is actual support of a trusted human being to express anger.
One objective is to get the person to be able to consciously face another person ad just say I am angry at (you) (person), This is taking control of the self.
Of course the use depends who the person is and what is happening with them,, it’s just one of a range of exercise and techniques dealing with anger issues. This one is is for repression of for developing expression.
Such a simple thing – could be used for children by parents – but there are many contemporary therapists who refuse to do this.They even ridicule it, but never do the simple scientific thing of testing it. They are afraid of anger or don’t have enough experience with the wide emotional life of humans
..
It’s what I mean in that common social culture itself is counter-productive to growth principles.
I’m not saying this is the cure-al, it’s just one exercise to try. If therapists are not trying impartially every thing that can be tried the they are not being very scientific, , they are not thus experimental and will very probably create failure which they have pre-determined in their inner narrative.
..
So… any thoughts?
..
Another counter-productive issue is when therapists “refuse to be involved” – meaning they stifle their human responses that would actually facilitate growth process. You cannot help a person facilitate emotional growth by avoiding emotions or by picking and choosing which ones you like and which ones you don’t.
…
The first thing effective in group that I remember is that the senior therapist punched every deliberately on the shoulder as I was sitting next to him in group. He did it twice. He also castigated and ridiculed me for my reaction.
IE
“How to you feel? What do you feel”
“Nothing. My shoulder feels a little sore”
…
The co-therapist across the circle participated in the confrontation by being very sympathetic to me saying ho she could hear that “whack”right across the circle -I still said “nothing”
I was perplexed, I knew he wasn’t attacking me. I trusted them. I was missing something, it nagged at me, that was the lesson that day, it was the beginning, of course it just made me want to go back again and again to group – I was hoked on unfinished business – perhaps the first time my consciousness started to work after being drugged for several years.
Hooking – that’s why patients return again and agin to therapy to face pain because they are hooked on unfinished business which they need to complete not because they “like or dislike” the therapist – if it is an effective therapy.
“The first thing effective in group that I remember is that the senior therapist punched every deliberately on the shoulder as I was sitting next to him in group.”
…
I forgot to mention the precipitating event. Someone had done some major emotional work, then afterwards as SOP they went round the circle asking for reactions and “yours truly” said (as usual) .. “reaction?!” . “feeling?!” “Uhh… nothing”
.
I think it was then also that “S” said in disgust “No human being can watch a movie for an hour and a half and not have a reaction!” . His action was as an intervention – it worked- my motor kick-started a few turns, as it were.
..
It’s why I believe Group Psychotherapy is the best for personality change, the group situation is very powerful and provides so much opportunity – and note that the people “working” were not SZ – if not for the wide variety of personality types there I would not have had the opportunity to learn, observe and react off so many other human emotions.
Also, I was extremely t withdrawn, introverted and afraid – It doesn’t matter for anyone – once a person it there – in a good psychotherapy where the therapists will take the clients to their work points and require them to make a choice – – there is no escape from the transformation process.
…
People use lots of excuses to not go to groups preferring individual – their only real problem is the excuses preventing them from getting there.
—
BTW, a “no answer” infers the answer is no.
If yes, it probably would be “yeah sure, do it all the time, no problem.”
Dear Ron,
I have been enjoying reading your website learning about various treatment options and viewpoints. I just want to include my observations as a sister to 2 siblings with schizophrenia. It has been a long road for my siblings living with schizophrenia. It has been a long road for my family as we try to ensure the best possible decisions are being made to reduce the burden of this challenging disease. While the medications are not perfect, I am so grateful that they have been available to my siblings. My siblings are the best they have ever been since the presentation of symptoms of schizophrenia. Their relapse rate requiring hospitalization is really low and my sister is able to consistently work and enjoy life. They take their medication as prescribed and it has worked for them. I attribute most of the management of their symptoms to taking medication. I like all your advice about healthy living and how essential a structured sleep pattern is essential. It would be helpful if you cited the scientific studies that support your reasoning behind discontinuing medication. Thank you!!
“My siblings are the best they have ever been since the presentation of symptoms of schizophrenia.”
Hi Judy.
I notice your “siblings’ are not speaking for themselves. I would say that belies your presentation.
What “scientific studies” do you have to prove they are still fully human? Why don’t they speak for themselves?
There is lots of scientific evidence to show that the “the management of their symptoms to taking medication” is due to the suppression of their emotional life ” I cite Robert Whitaker’s book Anatomy of an Epidemic”
So, “scientifically” speaking is that the way you like to relate to other human beings – all “scientifically-like” without their emotions?
Who’s burden bothers you anyway ,? Yours or theirs? I suspect that they enjoy their psychosis a lot more than you do
Maybe their burden is YOU.
Think about it. Think about what it means to be human.
Hi
I have just published my memoir ‘Surviving Schizophrenia: A Tale of Sound and Fury’. It is a story of my recovery. I do wish I had access to a site like yours a long time ago – I had to come to an understanding of my own of what had happened to me and it took me a long time to work it all out. On the bright side, I have got there at last!
I have found that few mental health professionals see patients as people. Thank you for being one of those who does so.
Louise
I believe my delusions and auditory hallucinations were caused by oral Candida. Anyone else have the same? My schizophrenic symptoms are gone by changing my diet and applying natural and prescribed medicines. It was not magic and I am still in the stages of healing but the debilitating symptoms are gone.
And why is it that most of those who are doing best have all long ago quit their “medical” treatment, psychiatric drugs?
A question being asked more and more often. But might the answer not be a very simple one? If those “who are doing best” and those who “long ago quit their medical treatment” is one synonymous group then surely it stands to reason that a single third factor could easily account for the fact that these other two factors are synonymous? That single third factor could quite simply be that this was the group which wasn’t so seriously ill, and therefore found it much easier to get by without medication and would probably have experienced recovery anyway, with or without medicine. Whilst those more seriously ill were not able to get by without medicine and would probably have continued having relapses whether or not they stopped the medication.
There is no physically demonstrable pathology that can reveal schizophrenia, but a small percentage of people in every culture and from every recorded age in history have been visibly afflicted with something which impairs vital thought processes, disturbs perceptions and in particular disturbs emotional responses making normal social interaction a stupendously difficult task. In order to be able to help as many of these people as possible epidemiology would recommend the grouping of them all under one diagnosis or group of diagnoses, but this isn’t always enlightening when you don’t have a pathology to cross check against. The result is probably that too many get diagnosed with the illness in cultures where health services have become highly developed, and health professions have high status, whilst too few perhaps get diagnosed in other cultures. Schizophrenia is probably best regarded as a genetically primed disposition of abnormal vulnerability to the emotional stresses of societal life, which may or may not become activated depending upon which environmental stressors the carrier of the disposition is exposed to.
If I’m right then you are also strictly speaking right in questioning the idea that schizophrenia is a “brain disease”. A genetic predisposition which under certain circumstances might lead to disturbance in brain function, expressed psychologically as disturbance in ego function, is not strictly speaking a brain disease, any more than it can be said that a computer is faulty when it fails to function well because of poorly programmed software. Still, if you don’t understand programming and are unable to fix the software you might be able to get a better functioning computer by adjusting the hardware. You may even have to wipe out the harddisk to have any chance of getting it working. So it is I fear with those most seriously afflicted by schizophrenia. Some of them will never be able to cope without medicine, which is not the same as saying that you may as well drop other forms of therapy which take interpersonal contact as the basic building element of a recovery, but they may well be unable to take advantage of these forms of therapy without medicine.
Do you know anyone in the state of Maryland that treats without medication?
Do you know anyone who practices in the state of South Carolina? My son has decided to move to Charleston and I know he is heading towards disaster and there does not appear to be anything we can do about it due to the legal system. He is of age and has the rights to make his own decisions even thought he has been medically diagnosed with schizophrenia Need any help or advise I can get for him.
My name is Cookie (Or at least that is what I mainly go by.)
I want to undergo a sex change to become a hermaphrodite, apparently I have to go through therapy before I can have the operation, and I looked up people certified to diagnose weather or not I can have the operation.
How much does it cost to undergo therapy with you until I can be diagnosed?
~Cookie_Nyan.
Hi Ron an readers,
I have found something that really works. It was developed for ocd by dr jeffrey m schwartz at ucla. It is called cognitive BIO behavioral therapy. Basicly you label the delusions or hallucinations what they really are and then you refocus on a hobby or activity you like. It takes cbt to the next level by rewiring the brain.By ignoring the delusions or hallucinations while distracting yourself with an activity that requires concentration, Your brain rewires so it becomes easier to concentrate on something positive that you like as well as ignore deceptive thoughts; delusions or hallucinations. Very much like the movie a beautiful mind.
You are in control of your mind and body. Let no man deceive you that you are not in control. Take charge of these things God has given to you. Try to use your brains to solve problems not to create problems. Have the spirit of perfect love within you and forge ahead. When all seems bad make powerful declarations and confess positive things. Try to be at peace with everyone and trust me you will be on your way to recovery. This is what science cannot give you. Immancipate yourself from mental slavery and none can do this except ourselves- the late Bob Marley. That means no one can do it for u except you.
So excited to have found this site!
Hey Ron, just wanted to let you know and others reading this that your technique about breaking state(from one that is “negative”) and consciously choosing to move into a compassionate understanding state when dealing with any person(including yourself) or situation has made all the difference. In fact that one thing I think could significantly change the world if everyone practiced it every time they slipped into a negative state. Thanks!
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