Psychotherapy and rehabilitation for Schizophrenia: Thoughts about their parallel development and potential integration

Psychotherapy and rehabilitation both have long been invested in helping persons with schizophrenia to move toward wellness. Strikingly, there is rarely a mention of one by the other in their respective literature, yet both seem to be developing in parallel. This division may not only be unnecessary but also an impediment to the development of novel interventions that foster recovery from schizophrenia. To better understand why this state developed and how the gap between psychotherapy and rehabilitation might be bridged, we have first explored the historical and then the contemporary issues that separate them. Finding that the historical points of contention that once separated these approaches are no longer relevant, we suggest there may be 3 issues that continue to serve as barriers to these fields working together. These include a lack of clarity about the optimal form of the relationship between mental health consumers and professionals; uncertainty about relative effects of therapeutic conversation and rehabilitative action on a person's well-being and subjective sense of self; and a lack of manualized, recovery-oriented psychotherapeutic interventions. We suggest a research path that could resolve these issues and allow for fruitful collaborations between both fields.