Five-year experience of first-episode nonaffective psychosis in open-dialogue approach: Treatment principles, follow-up outcomes, and two case studies

The open dialogue (OD) family and network approach aims at treating psychotic patients in their homes. The treatment involves the patient’s social network and starts within 24 hr after contact. Responsibility for the entire treatment process rests with the same team in both inpatient and outpatient settings. The general aim is to generate dialogue with the family to construct words for the experiences that occur when psychotic symptoms exist. In the Finnish Western Lapland a historical comparison of 5-year follow-ups of two groups of first-episode nonaffective psychotic patients were compared, one before (API group; n! /33) and the other during (ODAP group; n! /42) the fully developed phase…