1. Schizophrenia is greatly misdiagnosed particularly when substance abuse is present. 2. The benefits of psychotropic drugs tend to be exaggerated and their side-effects downplayed. A 1970s extensive study found the lowest rate of recidivism for severely disturbed hospitalized patients being when no medication was given, the next best result when medication was prescribed only during hospitalization, and the poorest outcome being when patients were told they need take medication after discharge (by believers of the "chemical imbalance" myth). 3. Explaining psychodynamics to patients can have a powerful healing effect as that paranoia is simply being overly watchful. Simple organization incompetence is often misinterpreted as conspiracy. As an aside, long ago the Silicon Valley guru, Andrew Grove, then head of Intel, wrote a famed book, Only The Paranoid Survive. 4. Information from mental health professionals varies in validity depending on their training, talent, and experience with some being worthless or even harmful. Still, people don't go to clinicians for advice, they almost always knowing what they want but being unable to achieve it and with which they need help. 5. Suicide reflects complex motive deriving from long term unhappiness exacerbated by recent stress, it often involving drug or alcohol use since there is a powerful biological imperative to live.
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