Nest therapy is a therapeutic method whose main objective is to modify the environment of people with schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders.
Applied in combination or in parallel with other interventions, rather than focusing solely on direct-to-patient interventions, the goal is to help you identify the need for change and fight for change in the environment.
- The purpose of nest therapy is not to change the person.
- But to create a better “adjustment” between the environment and the individual.
- As a result.
- The individual may improve.
- But this is not the direct result of treatment with the patient.
- But the creation of a more harmonious relationship with the environment.
If environmental factors or the environment in which a person lives have a significant influence on the onset of disease and relapse, nest therapists and people with schizophrenia can identify these factors together to try to reduce the number and severity of disease relapses.
This therapy was created by psychiatrist Peter Tyrer, who during his 40 years as a professional has published 38 books, has been editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry and has developed nest therapy as a form of environmental intervention, this has a theoretical basis related to the Darwinian concept of evolution.
Adapting an organism to its environment ensures its prosperity. Thus, if we can make the environment adapt to the body in a similar way, we will get positive behavioral changes.
Although environmental conditions are always accounted for in the evaluation and treatment of people with mental disorders, a coherent intervention strategy is rarely followed.
Giving the environment a paramount importance allows for changes that would not otherwise have been achieved. Environmental problems often become persistent triggers for mental illness relapses.
The success of environmental interventions requires a sensitive awareness and a particular ability to balance the patient’s needs with those of others.
The fundamental principles of nest therapy would be
Can nest therapy work in parallel?and cumulative effects – existing therapies, but at the same time, should they be independent of them.
Helping patients focus on environmental changes can improve adaptation to their environment, which can be manifested by better adherence to other treatments.
The goals proposed during nest therapy tend to involve many team members: social workers, psychologists, occupational therapists, creative therapists, or community workers.
The formal intervention usually lasts, according to the author’s experience, 10 sessions. Nest therapy adopts a five-phase model.
Nest therapy is usually implemented after the patient has been widely treated and has achieved all possible benefits of available interventions. At other times, it is usually implemented after a long battle between therapists to perform procedures, while patients resist.
If the therapist is able to define the patient what phenomena are caused by the disorder and what phenomena are caused by the environment, it reduces the possibility of conflict and increases collaboration with other types of interventions.
All patient wishes should be taken into account, even if they are extravagant or unle feasible.
The therapist’s environmental analysis follows the patient’s. This is done with or without the patient and is unlikely to be similar to that of the patient. Once completed, agreement must be reached on the objectives to be achieved and, in the event of discrepancies, go to the referee/mediator.
Phase II takes several hours, but when successful, it allows for quick negotiations in the next phases. The different elements of this common path are identified and planned in each intervention.
Many of these changes should be carefully considered and should occur gradually. It is important to set appropriate deadlines for these changes in order to avoid disappointment in the future.
While the acquisition of objectives can take considerable time, they must remain clear, transparent in the procedures for them to be achieved.
Comments on progress are important, so an assessment is proposed every three months as a reasonable timeframe, however, it is highly unlikely that all objectives will be satisfactorily met.
Sometimes goals that seemed appropriate end up not expanding, when this happens, it is necessary to go back and chart a new trajectory with different goals, generally less ambitious, but sometimes even more.
In this task is very important the role of the patient, as well as an honest acceptance of the decided.
More research is needed to fill gaps in knowledge about the efficacy, benefits and potential risks of nest therapy. Meanwhile, people with mental health problems, health professionals, administrators, and policy makers should consider this new therapy an experimental approach.
Nest therapy is a complex process that is still in development and, so far, is the only systematic environmental intervention with timely monitoring of persistent mental disorders.
Therapists should be trained to accept patients for what they are and not what they would like them to be.