Season 2 Episode 6: "Can Psychosis be Treated with Therapy?" with Michael Garrett, MD

Michael Garrett, MD is professor emeritus of Clinical Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, and previously served as medical director of the Department of Psychiatry at North Central Bronx Hospital, and Deputy Director of Psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital Medical Center in Manhattan. He is the author of Psychotherapy for Psychosis: Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychodynamic Treatment, which won Second Place in the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award, Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Category. His clinical and academic work has focused on better understanding the experience of psychosis and how it can be effectively treated with psychotherapy.

In this episode, Bruce talks to Michael about his experience working with clients exhibiting schizophrenia and other psychotic symptoms. Michael explains his understanding of psychosis as originating from a combination of biological predispositions and environmental factors and describes how his integration of both cognitive behavioral and psychodynamic approaches has helped numerous patients who would be considered untreatable by anything other than medication under the previous paradigm. He shares his hopes for the future of psychotherapeutic interventions for psychosis while recognizing that the field is still in the very early stages of understanding how to treat these extremely difficult cases.