Deb BushongFounder, Owner, & Therapist, Conversations Therapy · Clinical Expertise Meets Lived Experience in Psychosis Care

Is Psychosis the end of the road?

12 Dec 2024 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:33

In this YouTube talk, Deb Bushong‑Song, founder and therapist of Conversations Therapy and Supervision, addresses parents and caregivers of individuals experiencing early psychosis. She explains that many families first reach out to her because they are unsure how to help a child or young adult showing signs of psychosis. Drawing on over 20 years of clinical experience, she outlines the distinctive therapeutic style and specialized training her practice employs. Crucially, she emphasizes that a diagnosis such as schizophreniform or schizophrenia is not a death sentence; modern tools, resources, and therapeutic perspectives can enable recovery, allowing individuals to return to school, work, and family life. The talk aims to provide reassurance, practical guidance, and a hopeful outlook for families navigating early psychotic disorders.

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My name is Deb Bushong-Song. I am the owner, founder, and therapist of Conversations Therapy and Supervision. We are a therapy practice focused mainly on people who are dealing with developing, early in developing their experience with psychosis. And a lot of times people don't know what that means. So usually it's parents that call me and contact me. It's not even the person experiencing it. And parents are frequently at a loss for words. They don't even know where to turn. And they find me in various places online because I've been working with psychotic disorders for over 20 years. So— They find me, they call me, and they're like, "Help, please tell us what to do. You know, this has happened to my child, this has happened to my young adult, and I don't know where to turn next. I don't know what to do. What do you do that's different?" And so that's when I get to tell them a little bit about the style of therapy that we use, the style of therapy that I use in particular. Some of the specialties that I have been trained in. And also I get to tell them something that they probably don't hear from most psychiatrists, from most other therapists that they might have talked to, that there is hope for their child. That the diagnosis of something like Schizophreniform, schizophrenia, a psychotic disorder of any sort is not a death sentence because that's how it was seen for so many years. But this is something that their child can move on from. There are tools, there are resources, there are things that are available nowadays and different ways of seeing psychosis that allow people to move on in their life and go on with their dreams, go back to school, have a job, have a family.