A survey on issues in the lives of women with severe mental illness.

OBJECTIVE: Women with severe mental illness were surveyed to explore issues in living with mental illness, personal relationships, and professional relationships and health care. The topics were drawn from the literature on the psychology of women and from separate focus groups of therapists and mental health care consumers. The women's survey responses were compared with men's responses to an equivalent survey to determine if the issues affected women and men similarly. METHODS: A 76-item questionnaire was completed by 107 women and 59 men from ten rehabilitation centers in Maryland. RESULTS: A larger proportion of women than men cited personal relationships as their most important formative experiences, with only 32 percent of women citing severe mental illness or related issues as formative experiences. Despite acknowledging the negative impact of several mental illness on their lives, most respondents reported normal concerns rather than illness-related ones, and most were relatively satisfied with their lives. Respondents made sense of their problems in diverse ways, although most knew their diagnosis. Women reported both more and better quality personal relationships than men. However, women were more likely than men to report a history of sexual abuse. Women reported generally good relationships with providers. About one-quarter to one-third of women reported not receiving proper care for birth control and menopause and not receiving pelvic or breast examinations. CONCLUSIONS: The survey results suggested that personal relationships are central in women's lives, that women with severe mental illness do not see their mental illness as the main feature of their identities, and that women's experience of living with severe mental illness is considerably different from that of men.

Individual psychotherapy and persons with serious mental illness: the clients' perspective.

The perspectives of persons with serious mental illness about their experiences with individual psychotherapy were obtained from a stratified random sample of 12 psychosocial rehabilitation centers from all centers in Maryland. Response and completion rates, test-retest reliability, and generalization data were positive. Eight areas were explored: (1) Utilization and duration: of the 212 respondents, 90 percent had been in therapy for a median of 12 months (mean = 3 years); only a third expected to end their therapy within 5 years. (2) Therapeutic effectiveness: most of the respondents (72%) reported that individual psychotherapy had brought positive changes to their lives, 14 percent reported negative changes, and 14 percent reported that therapy had had no effect. (3) Preferred interventions and parameters: sixteen percent felt that medication was most useful, 25 percent felt that talking therapy was most useful, and 60 percent endorsed a combination of the two. With respect to diagnosis and psychotherapy, 84 percent of respondents with schizophrenia preferred brief, less frequent sessions of reality-oriented therapy over longer, more frequent sessions of insight therapy. Respondents with bipolar and major depression were equally split between the two. (4) Therapeutic issues: human concerns were more frequently rated as important and were rated higher in importance than illness-specific symptoms. (5) Clients' view of illness: Only 8 percent thought their illness was a brain disease, a third thought it was a psychological problem, and a quarter thought it was a combination of both; a third answered, open quote I don't know closed quote. Almost half did not know what their therapists thought. (6) Therapeutic relationship: Friendliness was the quality most desired in a therapist. (7) Confidentiality: Most felt that therapists generally kept the clients' confidences. (8) Empowerment: Persons who felt empowered in therapy spent less time in hospitals, expected a shorter stay in therapy, and knew more about their problems. Suggestions are made about a more client-responsive model of individual psychotherapy for persons with serious mental illness.

Consumers' attitudes toward psychotherapy, hospitalization, and aftercare.

A sample of 204 chronically mentally ill patients from a variety of outpatient settings was surveyed on their attitudes toward psychotherapy, hospitalization, aftercare, and their condition in life. Generally, they felt various types of psychotherapy and aftercare were helpful and reported good relationships with their therapists. However, their goals focused more on quality of life than on symptom reduction. Patients also were concerned about the perceived power of providers over their lives; unfair treatment, discrimination, and lack of respect because of their illness; and anger over their illness and its consequences. Consumers in advocacy groups showed a slightly higher rate of concern than those not in advocacy groups. However, significantly more consumers in advocacy groups reported anger over their experiences with mental illnesses.