I’ve read a manual on treatment-resistant borderline personality disorder that had a breakdown into four quadrants that were:
- Self is good, others are bad
- Self is bad, others are good
- Others are good, others are bad
- Self is good, self is bad
Us crazy people are crazy.
I remember reading about a remarkable study for people who heard voices. They worked with an artist to design a 3D face on a computer that “looked like” their voice. Then they spoke with the face. Nearly one third of people who participated in the study, six months later, reported that their voices had stopped entirely. Like that was it, they were cured. Others reported a lessening of negative symptoms and of course a lot of people weren’t helped at all.
I wonder if the reason why new treatments help and then stop helping is because of this idea of needing to find the right treatment for you. A study showing a treatment is very promising might show a big change for 20% of people who tried it. But maybe that’s a sign that the treatment only works for about 20% of people. So the more you deploy the treatment the more you run dry the well of people it can help.
