S1E38 - Ira Steinman - Coherence of the Self
[Content Warning: This episode contains descriptions of hallucination and language that might be disturbing to some audiences.]
We met with expert psychiatrist, Ira Steinman, to explore the little-understood world of schizophrenia. While this may seem like a niche topic, Steinman’s insights into the condition reveal valuable lessons for all of us. Recounting cases from his 2009 book, Treating the Untreatable, and from his clinical practice, Steinman describes how he helps his patients discover from where their symptoms arise, and how their symptoms serve them. He has then seen untreatable patients cured, and in many cases, fully freed from reliance on antipsychotic medications. Many of these recoveries are nothing short of miraculous. Steinman explains how victims of schizophrenia suffer from extreme dissociative disorder. We don’t need to suffer from the most debilitating symptoms of schizophrenia to appreciate the cautionary emphasis on the importance of bringing the self together, and cultivating a unity and coherence within ourselves. Join us.
Ira Steinman, is the author of Self Psychology and Psychosis: The Development of the Self During Intensive Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia and other Psychoses and Treating the "Untreatable": Healing in the Realms of Madness.
Dr. Steinman has focused on schizophrenia for 60 years; his early training ranged from studying with R.D. Laing to working at the National Academy of Sciences' Drug Efficacy Study, which evaluated all the antipsychotic medications available at that time. For more than 50 years, he has pursued an out-patient psychiatric practice where he has been able to demonstrate that an intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy, in conjunction with the judicious use of antipsychotic medication, can help even the most lost and disturbed schizophrenic and delusional patients recover, heal and, at times, achieve a cure. With such an approach, some allegedly "untreatable" schizophrenics have been able to work their way off of antipsychotic medication. He has spoken on this subject at length on a local, statewide, national and international level for more than forty years. He is a member of the ISPS (International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and other Psychoses); the American Psychiatric Association; and the Northern California Psychiatric Association.
Conversation recorded on June 9, 2023.