I have just read this entire thread. I think I understand where Quantum is coming from. I too, have a schizophrenic family member who has been hospitalized and jailed several times. I too have done quite a bit of reading about it.
I don't think there is a conspiracy or that the mental health industry is self-perpetuating. I think that the system is full of individuals who bring their own experiences and biases with them (a girl being possessed, i.e.), and work with what tools and training they are given. Drug companies don't help matters. But it isn't purposeful - it is just a system with pathological problems that need fixed. People who think they are helping are, in fact, causing irreparable damage. They don't mean to - it is what happens when we don't understand what we're doing.
Kirsty says she tells people to stop their voices or delusions. I was taught this was not a good thing to do - never confront a defense mechanism head-on, or you are asking for trouble. I was taught that a delusion or hallucination is a result of negative feelings. i.e., if a person feels unworthy, they have delusions of grandeur, such as being God; if a person feels they have no control over their life, they have paranoias that they are being controlled. The way to fix the problem is to not focus on the delusions or hallucinations, but the feelings. Help the person feel worthy, and they forget about being God. Help the person feel in control of their life, and they forget about massive conspiracies setting them up for murder.
I can say I have tried this with my family member, and it is very effective. For 10 years, our family focused on the delusions, and all along, helping was so simple if we had only known how.
I want to say, that other than that, I appreciate Kirsty's experience with schizophrenia, greatly, and her understanding of people in the depths of mental crisis.
To address Quantum's suggestion about acknowledging someone's ability - I like that idea. The reason I like it is because who is to say what it is that is causing a person to hallucinate? Or who is to say that they are hallucinating, just because we don't perceive what they do? Perhaps there IS someone sending electronic signals to their brain! After Viet Nam, I believe the military is capable of anything. Who am I to say? All I can say is what I was taught when addressing someone else's "delusion" or "hallucination," - "I am not able to hear the voices you hear." To take it a step further with Quantum's idea, "I believe you are able to hear the voices say [whatever it is they are saying]."
To address Abnak's question, this is NOT saying, "I believe that what the voices are saying is true," and it is NOT saying, "I believe the voices are really there." You are simply acknowledging that the person hears them, and nothing else.
In all the reading I've done, I have not concluded that even mental health professionals know what is going on for sure. They are still investigating why some medications work the way they do. In the process, they are finding a lot out about how the brain works. Who is to say that someday they won't find that schizophrenics have abilities, and possibly even gifts the rest of us don't, that turn out to be beneficial to society if they are used properly instead of creating havoc? We simply don't know.