What do you make of the thus-far success of the Soteria Houses/paradigm?

I think the proponents of this method of treatment and practitioners involved would argue that schizophrenia is not a lifelong disease, and true improvement is possible without the standard treatment methodology commonly seen in psychiatric hospitals.

Here are some links of interest that I pulled up in a quick Google search - unfortunately research is lacking and widespread implementation is yet to happen in any meaningful amount outside of Europe -

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-through-t...

https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/10/original-soteria-member...

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Soteria_(psychiatric_treatment)#...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2632384/

Draw whatever conclusions you would like from those links and further research if you're interested, but here are my 2¢:

A for-profit psychiatric hospital, that is basically a prison (with locked doors, restrictions to personal freedom, restraints, forced medication - a place that strips its patients of rights, with almost no recourse for patients if they are unhappy with their standard of care), is incredibly harmful.

Imagine being released from a psychiatric hospital in the USA and having been told that you will be ill (suffer from schizophrenia) for the rest of your life.

You will have to take (sometimes expensive) medication(s) for the rest of your life (and to never skip a dose or it might cause relapse).

You get hit with an exorbitant bill that you likely can't pay. No concrete changes to your life (besides massive debt) were made by the psychiatrist/therapist/support staff. Your family is still the same, your living situation may be the same or it might have been turned upside down. You probably lost your job if you had one, depending on onset/etc.

I'd feel pretty helpless. I'd also be traumatized by the experience, especially if I were involuntarily hospitalized.

I think our current standard of "care" worsens mental illness - especially delusions and persecution complexes. It makes patients believe that they will never truly be better, unless they constantly "seek help" - taking away any shred of confidence, provides no real-life solutions (operates inside a vacuum), bills an extremely vulnerable person exorbitant amounts of money, and is designed to keep the patient coming back.

Medication can have paradoxical side effects which, depending on severity, can only be rectified under controlled circumstances (hospitalization), and as the OP's link points out, schizophrenia is probably a bit more complicated than simply being caused by genes and so-called chemical imbalances.

I believe trauma, lifestyle, diet/nutrition, environment, physical activity levels, isolation/lack of a support system, and medical problems (like heavy metal poisoning), vitamin deficiencies, bad gut biome/digestive issues/food allergies, and chronic, systemic inflammation are more likely the causative agents to point to (that psychiatrists tend to ignore/downplay in favor of medication above all else for whatever reason).

I think that capitalism and for-profit should never go near the word hospital, especially a hospital that focuses on helping people in crisis.