Schizophrenia and Healing Environment

Lee, Hae Kyung; Lee, Myung Soo; Noh, Jai Sung

Abstract

Treatment of schizophrenia is one of the most challenging areas in the field of psychiatry. There has been much improvement in psycho-pharmacotherapy, and at present, psycho-pharmacotherapy along with milieu therapy and social rehabilitation is the standard first-line treatment for schizophrenia. Healing environment, a concept which has arisen from the architectural field, has similarities in meaning to milieu therapy in psychiatry. In other words, healing environment may be an encountering point between psychiatry and architecture. In this encountering, each field can understand each other and expand its concept to aid the treatment of schizophrenia and to plan the build-up of the entire environment considering its social and psychological effects. In this paper, we aim to establish the basic concept of healing environment to alleviate the psychopathologies in schizophrenic patients. We worked under the premise that physical setting affects human behavior and mind, and that physical setting should play a role as a medium with therapeutic potential for patients with medical problems. The aims of this paper are as follows. First, theoretical discussion of the concept and the constructs of healing environment : second, understanding of the schizophrenic symptoms that may be affected by supporting environment : and third, discussion of supporting environment that may alleviate the symptoms of schizophrenia.