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The Soteria Project

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Schizophrenia Treatment Without Antipsychotic Drugs and the Legacy of Loren Mosher. Soteria. Loren Mosher. Loren Richard Mosher (September 3, 1933, Monterey – July 10, 2004, Berlin)[2][3] was an American psychiatrist,[3][4]:21 clinical professor of psychiatry,[2][5][6] expert on schizophrenia[5][6] and the chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia in the National Institute of Mental Health (1968–1980).[2][3][5] Mosher spent his professional career advocating for humane and effective treatment for people diagnosed as having schizophrenia[3] and was instrumental in developing an innovative, residential, home-like, non-hospital, non-drug treatment model for newly identified acutely psychotic persons.[2] Biography[edit] Before conceiving Soteria, Mosher supervised a ward in a psychiatric hospital at Yale University as its assistant professor, prescribed neuroleptics and was not “against” them.

Loren Mosher M.D. talks about Soteria Project and non-drug treatments for Schizophrenia. The Soteria Project. During the 1970s, the head of schizophrenia studies at the NIMH, Loren Mosher, conducted an experiment that compared treatment in a homelike environment (called Soteria), where antipsychotics were minimally used, to conventional treatment in a hospital setting.

The Soteria Project.

At the end of two years, the Soteria patients had “lower psychopathology scores, fewer (hospital) readmissions, and better global adjustment” than those treated conventionally with drugs in a hospital setting. Only 31% of the patients treated without drugs in in the Soteria House who remained off neuroleptics after leaving the program relapsed over the next two years.