When You Don't Know Where to Turn / A Self-Diagnosing Guide to Counseling and Therapy

by Steven J. Bartlett

For Schizophrenics

Therapeutic running also seems to benefit schizophrenic patients. Schizophrenia is a complex, difficult-to-treat illness that affects approximately 1 percent of the world's population. It is no respecter of particular cultures. There are many forms of the illness, but all are characterized by disabling blockages to normal human interrelation, strange behavior, loss of contact with reality, and withdrawal, paranoia, or hallucinations. Again, Dr. Kostrubala has attempted to help patients with this condition through a combined program of medication, psychotherapy, and therapeutic running. Although he is careful to emphasize that controlled studies have yet to be made, his judgment about the patients he has treated is that

... using this form of running therapy ... [I] have seen them change dramatically. They begin to lose their symptoms; medication can be reduced and often discontinued; and they have picked up the course of their lives until several are no longer recognizable as schizophrenics at all—even by professional observers.[[3]]

[[3]] Thaddeus Kostrubala, The Joy of Running (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1976), p. 129.

... I have come to the conclusion that running, done in a particular way, is a natural form of psychotherapy.[[4]]

[[4]] Kostrubala, The Joy of Running, p. 119

The Risks

Since therapeutic running appears to be of psychiatric value, it is not surprising that it, like any attempt to heal, may have potential risks. Aside from the obvious potential for sports-related injuries, there is a specific risk: physical addiction. Dr. William Glasser, whose approach to psychotherapy we discussed in the section dealing with reality therapy (Chapter 11), agrees with Kostrubala that therapeutic running is addictive. Glasser calls it a positive addiction, since—unlike the use of alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates—running is constructive and therapeutic.[[5]] However, like alcoholism and drug addiction, therapeutic running does produce very real withdrawal symptoms if a dedicated runner cannot continue to run, whether temporarily because of an injury or illness, or permanently. Withdrawal symptoms can be surprisingly severe: primarily, strong anxiety and insomnia, but sometimes also restlessness, sweating, weight gain or loss, and/or depression.

[[5]] William Glasser, Positive Addiction (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), Chapter 5. (Chapter 6 of his book is devoted to another positive addiction, meditation.)