Pitt professor uses social work to treat emotional disorder

When the first trial of Cognitive Enhancement Therapy to treat schizophrenic individuals ran in 2004, Shaun Eack said it was met with some skepticism.

“There was a whole series of articles saying the brain and schizophrenia can not be changed — and it sure as hell can’t be changed by a social worker,” Eack said.

That was the case until the development of Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (CET), a rehabilitation program intended to treat individuals suffering from schizophrenia through brain-stimulating exercises.

Eack, an assistant professor in Pitt’s School of Social Work, explained the details of the rehabilitation program in a lecture entitled “Social Work Interventions to Improve Cognition and Recovery of Schizophrenia and Autism” Wednesday at noon in Room 2017 of the Cathedral of Learning as part of the School of Social Work’s lecture series.

Eack said he and his late predecessor, Jerry Hogarty, a former professor in Pitt’s School of Medicine, faced a lot of opposition while establishing the program. Opponents said research on schizophrenia was not within a social worker’s realm. But according to Eack, he and his team of researchers are proving these skeptics wrong.

He said the premise of the study sprung from research Hogarty conducted in the late 1990s. By drawing from a compilation of existing literature, Hogarty came to a vital conclusion.

“The problems that people who suffer from schizophrenia have in their thinking and cognition … are really challenges that many individuals experience at the adolescent and preadolescent stages of cognitive development,” Eack said.

Based on this assertion, the team worked to develop a rehabilitation program to give schizophrenic individuals the ability to spur their cognitive development through a series of exercises. Instead of trying to rehabilitate the brain through medicine, Eack hopes to renew its functions through social and logical activity.

The long-term program incorporates CET, which engages schizophrenic individuals in neurocognitive training and social cognitive group therapy so they can return to the workforce.

Neurocognitive training requires individuals to complete various programs via computer.

Eack demonstrated a sample program in which shapes flash across a screen and users name the shapes from memory. He said such activities will improve brain functions such as basic logic, problem solving and memory skills that are often impaired by schizophrenia.

Social cognitive group therapy involves a group of people enacting various social scenarios. Activities in the group sessions prompt the participants to empathize and see from the perspective of another individual. Social interaction is key for schizophrenics, Eack said.

“But a group … is an extremely powerful setting for working on problems associated with social cognition and social skill,” he said.

Eack said the rehabilitation program may affect those who suffer from other emotional disorders. He and his research team are developing a preliminary program that will incorporate a majority of the CET methods to treat individuals suffering from autism.

Eack said the similarities between emotional disorders such as autism and schizophrenia make it easy to convert the rehabilitation program. Such a program is desperately needed in the adult autism community, Eack said.

“Since 1960, the number of psychosocial treatment published studies for adults with autism spectrum disorder — I can fit on one slide.” Eack said. “We know nothing about how to treat adults with autism spectrum disorder, let alone about how to improve cognition.”

This lack of research challenged him to translate the CET to autistic individuals, he said.

Kristen West, a freshman majoring in psychology, said she was shocked by the dearth of research in treating emotional disorders.

She added that she was unaware of “the need for an increase in outreach.”

Edie Brozanski worked with Eack as a student before she graduated from the School of Social Work in 2010. After researching Eack’s latest work on CET, Brozanski stressed the value of the program.

“Anything to assist people with schizophrenia is so important because it’s such a debilitating mental-health issue, and I’m very interested in that,” she said.

Monica Ceraso, an administrative assistant at the School of Social Work, helped to organize the lecture series. She said she was not only impressed with Eack’s presentation, but also with his career as a researcher.

“I would not have thought, personally, that social-work intervention could actually help with an illness such as schizophrenia and autism,” Ceraso said. “The way he explains the outcomes of these studies — it’s just fascinating.”