Schizophrenics Anonymous

Domain V · Systemic, relational, group & community · Joanne Verbanic · 1985 · Detroit, USA

What it is

Schizophrenics Anonymous is a mutual-help (peer support) fellowship, not a therapy that a clinician delivers. It was run "both by and for" people with schizophrenia or a related illness. Joanne (also spelled Joann) Verbanic, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1970, founded it in Detroit in…

Format

• There is no phase structure or session count. Attendance is open-ended and voluntary. The framework below shows how the fellowship is organised, followed by a clinician pathway.
• Local groups. Independent groups meet weekly. Some meet in community centres, libraries, drop-in centres and peer-run programmes. Others meet inside psychiatric hospitals or jails and are closed to the public. S&PAA notes that its listed face-to-face groups are run by independent community leaders,…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Remote meetings. Under SARDAA there were several weekly SA conference calls, a Family and Friends call, Zoom meetings and a Spanish-language meeting. S&PAA now uses a registration form and an online meeting platform (HeyPeers, which has a waiting list and a standby room for full meetings). It also runs an online message board (Inspire) and a Facebook "blended" support group.
• Leadership. Groups are peer-led by volunteer facilitators and co-facilitators. S&PAA runs three facilitator-training cohorts a year and is recruiting volunteers to restore in-person groups. Historically some groups were organised by professionals. Groups led by consumers lasted significantly longer than groups led by professionals.
• Optional peer-role development. A stable client may want to co-facilitate. Support training and boundaries.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• The client relying on peers in place of crisis care.
• Ambivalence. Treat it as information, not as resistance.
• Conflict when relatives use group language to pressure the client.
• Overextension, rescuing other members, and secondary traumatic stress.
• Dependence on the clinician. Fade the support over two or three meetings.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.