Seeking advice - supporting a friend

[MisguidedAngel]

Please can I ask for some advice about the best way to support a friend.

My partner and I are very friendly with a man and we like his girlfriend too, though we don't see so much of her (they have an on/off relationship). Last year he told me that he was very worried about her - she was hearing voices, arguing with them, thinking messages were coming to her through the radio and other similar things. He was the only one she'd told and she'd asked him not to tell anyone else, but he was so concerned he asked for my advice. He thought she was depressed, but I said I thought it was more serious than that.

I have a small amount of experience in this area, but we aren't in the UK and I don't know the systems here. I said he should encourage her to see her doctor. She wouldn't do that, she insisted a doctor couldn't help her because she wasn't mad. She went to see a medium who told her she was possessed by evil spirits. She then asked her priest to exorcise her house and she started going back to church which she found helpful.

A year on, she has now confided in me herself. She says there is now just one spirit, she has named him, who is with her all the time, sometimes nasty and sometimes nice. She acknowledges that he is less present when she is busy, with other people and active. Unfortunately she can't find a job, she hasn't got much money and she doesn't trust anybody so she can get quite low. She is divorced with two teenage children who don't live with her, though she has quite a good relationship with them - but now they are going off to college/travelling etc. She feels she has learned how to manage with this spirit.

My gut feeling is not to challenge her belief, just to encourage her to do the things that make her feel better. What do people think? And is there anyone else who lives with this sort of problem and gets by without medication?