Schizoaffective Disorder Treatment
Schizoaffective disorder treatment must address symptoms of psychosis as well as episodic mood swings. Unfortunately, many people with this disorder are misdiagnosed and don’t get the treatment that they need.
At Gulf Coast Recovery Center, we offer comprehensive treatment for mental health disorders like schizoaffective disorder. Visit our admissions page now to get started.
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What is Schizoaffective Disorder?
Schizoaffective disorder is a rare mental health disorder characterized by combined symptoms of psychotic and mood disorders.
Because schizoaffective disorder shares symptoms with other types of disorders, it is often misdiagnosed. As a result, many people with the disorder get treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression.
It is also difficult to know the prevalence of the disorder. An article from JAMA Psychiatry estimates the lifetime prevalence of schizoaffective disorder at 0.32%. Still, these numbers could be inaccurate because schizoaffective disorder is often misdiagnosed.
So, what makes schizoaffective disorder different from other psychotic and mood disorders? After all, some people have depression with psychotic features—meaning symptoms of psychosis accompany their depressive episodes. And, people with manic episodes from bipolar could have delusions and hallucinations.
The key difference is that with schizoaffective disorder, your psychotic symptoms persist even if you aren’t currently having a manic or depressive episode.
How Do I Know I Need Schizoaffective Disorder Treatment?
If you have symptoms of a mood disorder along with psychosis, you might need schizoaffective disorder treatment.
Mental health treatment programs can alleviate symptoms while teaching coping skills to manage triggers. In addition, psychiatric medications, such as mood stabilizers and antipsychotics, are a critical part of treating schizoaffective disorder.
Symptoms of Schizoaffective Disorder
If you have symptoms of a mood disorder along with psychosis, you might need schizoaffective disorder treatment.
Mental health treatment programs can alleviate symptoms while teaching coping skills to manage triggers. In addition, psychiatric medications, such as mood stabilizers and antipsychotics, are a critical part of treating schizoaffective disorder.
Symptoms of schizoaffective disorder include the following:
- Psychotic Symptoms
- Hallucinations (seeing, hearing, feeling, or sensing things that aren’t real)
- Delusions (strong and unshakeable beliefs that don’t have any basis in reality)
- Paranoia (feeling persecuted or deliberately harmed by others without evidence)
- Disorganized thinking (rapid speech, racing thoughts, jumping from one topic to the next)
- Mood Disorder Symptoms
- Depressive symptoms (persistent sadness, low energy, fatigue, and low mood)
- Manic symptoms (high levels of energy, restlessness, euphoria, and hyperactivity)
- Hypomania (similar to manic symptoms, but less intense)
Thus, mood swings are a feature of schizoaffective disorder. This means that you have periods of depressive, manic, or hypomanic episodes that follow one another (ie, you feel extremely manic and then crash into a state of depression). Or, you have periods of one extreme (mania or depression) followed by periods of relative calmness.
Diagnostic Criteria
However, since psychosis is also a feature of some mood disorders, you must meet the following criteria for a schizoaffective disorder diagnosis:
- Symptoms of psychosis occur alongside a mood disorder, like depression or bipolar disorder.
- Psychotic symptoms occur for two or more weeks without a major mood episode (ie, a depressive or manic episode).
- Drugs, alcohol, or prescription medications do not cause your symptoms.
If the above-mentioned symptoms and criteria describe you, you could benefit from our schizoaffective treatment programs in Tampa, Florida.
Our Schizoaffective Disorder Treatment Programs
Schizoaffective disorder treatment includes comprehensive approaches with both therapy and medication.
In fact, these are the two primary components of treating any type of mental health disorder. Along with holistic approaches, we offer therapy and psychiatric services to treat schizoaffective disorder.
Treating Schizoaffective Disorder with Therapy
Therapy is one of the most effective ways to treat mental health disorders. At Gulf Coast Recovery Center, you’ll get a mix of both group and individual therapy sessions.
Therapy can help to treat not only the symptoms of your disorder but also the side effects of your disorder. For example, due to mental health stigma, many people struggle with low self-esteem as a result of having a diagnosis. For others, their interpersonal relationships with loved ones suffer due to their actions while in the midst of mental illness.
Our masters-level therapists specialize in several modalities to treat schizoaffective disorder, including:
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): During CBT, you will work on challenging unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs that negatively affect your behaviors and self-esteem. CBT is one of the most common types of therapy, with a proven track record of effectiveness in treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other disorders.
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): Originally developed to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD), DBT is proven effective for several mental health and substance use disorders. DBT helps you improve emotional regulation, impulse control, all-or-nothing thinking, and mindfulness.
- Motivational interviewing (MI): A short-term form of therapy, MI helps you when you struggle with ambivalence toward treatment. Sometimes, you enter a treatment program due to pressure from others or as a legal requirement. During MI, your therapist will help you uncover reasons to change that are important to you.
Treating Schizoaffective Disorder with Medication
Psychiatric medications can reduce psychotic symptoms as well as help to stabilize your mood. Because schizoaffective disorder is both a mood and psychotic disorder, you could take a combination of psychiatric medications. However, some mood stabilizers also reduce psychotic symptoms. The following are medications that can help with schizoaffective disorder:
- Antipsychotics reduce symptoms of psychosis, like hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and delusions. Currently, Invega is the only FDA-approved antipsychotic specifically for schizoaffective disorder. However, your psychiatrist can prescribe other antipsychotics, like Haldol, Clozaril, or Risperdal.
- Antidepressants treat depression and anxiety disorders. If you have depressive episodes with schizoaffective disorder, you could benefit from antidepressants to alleviate your symptoms.
- Mood stabilizers help regulate manic and hypomanic episodes. However, some antipsychotics also work as mood stabilizers. Therefore, if you’re taking an antipsychotic, you might not need a separate mood stabilizer.
What to Expect at Gulf Coast Recovery Center
At Gulf Coast Recovery Center, you can expect quality care and evidence-based practices during schizoaffective disorder treatment. Our team of therapists and support staff are here to provide you with the best mental health treatment available in Tampa, Florida.
Our outpatient treatment programs allow you to live at home or in a separate mental health housing facility while in our care. In addition, we offer step-down levels of care. This means that as you advance in your mental health recovery, you spend less time in treatment and gradually gain the skills you need to thrive outside of our facility.
We offer the following levels of care at Gulf Coast Recovery Center:
- Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP): During PHP, you attend treatment six days a week for 6-8 hours per day. This is great for you if you are stepping down from an inpatient mental health center or a psychiatric hospitalization.
- Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP): After completing a PHP program, you can step down to an IOP level of care. You’ll spend about half as much time in treatment as PHP. Because of this, you can tend to other responsibilities in your life while still getting a high level of professional support. We also have an evening IOP for even more flexibility.
- Outpatient Program (OP): Many people still need professional support after completing intensive programming. You can continue to see a therapist during our regular outpatient program. Most people will see their therapist once per week for several months or longer as needed.
Medically Reviewed
Medically Reviewed by
Jennifer Strong, LMHC
Written by Gulf Coast Recovery Staff Updated on January 12, 2024
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Get Schizoaffective Disorder Treatment Today
Schizoaffective disorder is commonly misdiagnosed as either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. However, a misdiagnosis leads to improper treatment, since you need to address symptoms of psychosis and a mood disorder. At Gulf Coast Recovery Center in Tampa, Florida, we offer comprehensive schizoaffective disorder treatment including psychiatry, therapy, and holistic approaches.
Contact us today to learn how our mental health treatment programs will help you or your loved one.
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I had been in all levels of treatment care before coming to TBRC. This is the first place where I found an excellent level of commitment, care and treatment. This facility truly cares for its patients. Most of the people who work at TBRC have walked in “our shoes” (the alcoholic or addict) at some point in their lives. This makes them UNIQUELY able to help and understand it’s patients. After several years of relapsing, Tampa Bay Recovery taught me how to live the life of recovery..I recommend this facility above any I have attended.
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Getting treatment made a huge difference in my effort to try to get clean. I worked at it for ages and it just didn’t happen for long until I finally came in here. Now, I’ve been clean almost two years. It feels so good to be in control of my life again.
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