We share in this first project news post the research and scholarly experiences that led to our project.
Our careers developed on very different foundations, with Kesh trained as a psychiatrist and Russ as an academic sociologist, but we shared a commitment to research on mental health with the goals of improving people’s lives in the community as well as increasing understanding of health and illness. What led to Project SUCCESS were research experiences that made us both recognize the importance of better thinking skills and social connections for achieving both goals. Psychotropic drugs in themselves did not do much to improve social and community functioning among persons diagnosed with schizophrenia or related disorders.
Working initially with Gerry Hogarty, MSW and Shaun Eack, PhD at the University of Pittsburgh, Kesh found that Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (CET), an innovative psychosocial treatment combining cognitive remediation and socially engaging group sessions led to gains in social and community functioning for persons diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Working at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, initially with psychiatrist Steve Goldfinger, MD, neuropsychologist Larry Seidman, PhD and others, Russ found that social engagement improved housing retention among formerly homeless persons with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses, but that it was difficult to develop the type of social connections that have this beneficial effect.
These insights from our own research converged with a growing interdisciplinary body of scholarship pointing to the importance of social connection for human functioning. We highlighted this research in our co-edited book, Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society. We then found in Kim Mueser, PhD at Boston University and Sarah Pratt, PhD at Dartmouth, experts on an innovative social skills training program (HOPES/SST) that provided a useful contrast to CET. Multiple independent randomized controlled trials have established the efficacy of both CET and SST. We decided to propose a comparative effectiveness study to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to understand how best to improve community functioning with training in thinking and social skills. Project SUCCESS was the result.
In our next news update, we’ll report on project progress so far. Our co-investigators will contribute their own reflections.
Thanks to our co-investigator team, our site PIs, and our wonderful staff who are making Project SUCCESS succeed. Thanks also to Amy O’Brien and others at OpenScholar, Kathleen Powers and Sarah Darcy at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, and to Michael Rejtig and Matt Killam on our own staff, who have made this website possible. We also acknowledge our debt to Larry Seidman, PhD, the renowned neuropsychologist with whom we were privileged to work until his untimely death in the year before we developed Project SUCCESS.
Russ and Kesh