Product Description
Out of It: An Autobiography on the Experience of Schizophrenia guides us through one man’s mental journey through seven months of schizophrenia.

Customer Reviews (4)

Interesting Read
I thought "Out of It" was a very well written book.It shows us what actual hallucinations can be like for the schizophrenic.Obviously the writer
is well spoken on what he experienced in the 7 months during which he was delusional.

Out of It
Under the circumstances that the writer / author was newly recovered from the throes of seven months of a severe mental illness...I would say the book was extremely well written.

Don't buy
Badly needs an editor. Mistakes like "nice cream" for "ice cream" and nearly every use of the possessive pronoun "its" is spelled with an apostrophe.

Out of It
I found this book to be quite engrossing.It gives an incredible look into the world of schizophrenia. ... Read more

Product Description
A journalist's memoir, written with his son, about his son's descent into schizophrenia--a profoundly moving account of mental illness in the family. ... Read more

Product Description
Now available in paper for the first time, this book details the practical application of cognitive-behavioral therapy to the pervasive disorder of schizophrenia. Presented are research-supported ways to help patients alleviate the impact of disabling irrational beliefs and improve their daily lives. The interventions described are designed to complement other treatments for schizophrenia, including medication, rehabilitation, and family therapies. Rich clinical examples enhance the practical utility of the text.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good But...
... they seem to have the idea that delusions and hallucinations have some psychodynamic meaning, rather than being randomly generated.Go figure.

essential reading if you work with people who have schizophrenia
Detailed text summarizing the authors' 15 years' experience doing psychotherapy with people who have schizophrenia.They modify CBT to address hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, & negative symptoms.They give suggestions for co-morbid syndromes.Many treatment issues are covered in detail.They support use of medication but go well beyond the medical model.They provide a lit review (up to 2005) summarizing, among other things, 16 randomized, controlled trials showing significant benefits for CBT relative to supportive counseling or "befriending".They use 4 case studies to illustrate topics at the end of each chapter.Clearly written, with sample educational handouts & assessment measures included.

A Review
This book is clear, concise, and perspicacious.It brakes down the elements of schizophrenia and its symptoms into understandable, although exaggerated, human experiences.This book would be excellent for any friends and family members of people with schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorders.Kingdon and Turkington describe the intellectual process of psychosis in terms that allow the lay person to comprehend the illness. ... Read more

Product Description
This story of a father guiding his son from despair to hope is a chilling, inspiring journey through the mysterious tunnel of schizophrenia--a world once closed and forbidding, now suddenly radiating excitement as thousands of patients are, in effect, being reborn.

Jeff Wyden, a bright, happy boy in childhood, began to withdraw in adolescence, and by the age of twenty-one was severely psychotic, disconnected from reality. He was schizophrenic. In the ensuing twenty-five years, Peter Wyden accompanied his son into a hell without certainties as they searched for a solution.

We see them pass through the hands of more than fifty psychiatrists and countless hospitals, clinics, and halfway houses. Doctors and health-care providers help and sometimes hinder both father and son in their odyssey through hypnosis, electroshock, dozens of drug therapies, and disabling "side effects."

Throughout their ordeal, the father's management of his son's managers is his daily task, self-assigned despite self-doubt. He is alternately tolerant and challenging while he observes and learns, always primed for more of Jeff's mercurial signs of new crises.

Along the way we learn about the history of the treatment of schizophrenia, from barbaric stopgaps like prefrontal lobotomy to the biomedical treatments that have revolutionized psychiatry. And finally, there is the new drug Olanzapine--a godsend for Jeff, and reason for cheer. It is not a cure, but many consider it the safest, most effective treatment to date (the first of similar medications recently licensed by the Food and Drug Administration, with more on the way). The story of its development is told here for the first time.

Until now, few of us have realized that two and a half million Americans, mostly young and intelligent, are schizophrenic, merely existing through the decades, separated from reason, rendered dysfunctional by the costly and little-understood disease. Fifty million people worldwide suffer from it. This compelling and enlightening book offers useful information about what can be done for them today--and the hope of more help to come.
Amazon.com Review
Described by Nature magazine in 1988 as "arguablythe worst disease affecting mankind, even AIDS not excepted,"schizophrenia is devastating for both sufferers of the affliction--more than 50 million people worldwide--and their families. Conquering Schizophrenia is one family's account of theirterrible, 25-year journey to hell and back.

Jeff Wyden was abubbly and vivacious child, described by his father as "unusuallycharming." In early adolescence, small changes occurred in Jeff'spersonality--his boundless energy was replaced with silence and adevastatingly low self-esteem. By age 21, Jeff had become severelypsychotic and completely withdrawn from reality. So began thenightmare of schizophrenia. Jeff's story is eloquently told by hisfather, Peter Wyden. Although an inspirational book, especially forthose affected by a mental illness, the ConqueringSchizophrenia doesn't lapse into excessive sentimentality. Jeff isfrequently portrayed as a monster, consumed by the wretcheddisease. Treatment options for the illness were particularly grim,including prefrontal lobotomies and electric-shock therapy. For morethan two decades, Peter Wyden searched for a better answer, whicheventually came with the development of new drugs. With thistreatment, Jeff was "almost civilian" again. Wyden is anenergetic and illuminating author who writes of a subject matter withwhich he has lived so closely for several decades. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Not Quite Conquering ....Yet
But still a valuable book that vividly portrays what concerned and responsible families endure when dealing with a psychotic child and trying to make sense of the mental health system that is not really a system. Unfortunately for Peter Wyden, his son became ill at a time when psychiatry was just moving out of the era influenced by Freud with concepts like schizophrenogenic mothers. Today,this crippling disease is becoming properly recognized as a neurobiological problem.

Wyden guided his son through something like 50 different psychiatrists, numerous hospitals, clinics, half way houses, hypnosis and electroshock before the development of olanzapine. While this wasn't the first drug developed, it was the one that worked the best for them. Since this book was written in 1997, a number of other drugs in the olanzapine class have been brought to market. While they do help with many of the symptoms, they have not conquered the illness. In fact, there is now considerable controversy about the side effects associated with these newer agents.

This class of drugs, called atypical antipyschotics, can cause considerable weight gain, elevated cholesterol levels, and the onset of type II diabetes. As a result, many doctors are going back to prescribing some of the older drugs and/or prescribing lower doses of two or more of them simultaneously.

The important point, however, is that with more drug choices that are presently available, there is greater chance that one of them will be effective.The importance of this book is the description of the family role as it should be but is all to often not. Parents need to and should become actively involved in helping their ill children even if that is not appreciated by some psychiatrists.

Marvin Ross
Author Schizophrenia: Medicine's Mystery - Society's Shame

title is a misnomer
author spends a great deal of time (xxx? pages) oscillating between blaming mental health professionals and presenting himself as a devoted father (perhaps too devoted?--i.e. overly responsible?)...furthermoreschizophrenia is not "conquered" at the end of the book...ratheronly the right drug is found--which eliminates symptoms but which, contraryto popular belief, does not "cure" mental illness (since thepatient is only well as long as he is medicated)

A veritable encyclopedia of psychiatry and mental health
Before you ransack the library trying to get straight about mental illness, just read Peter Wyden's "Conquering Schizophrenia - a Father, his Son, and a Medical Breakthrough."Wyden, a writer, tells of his son Jeff's 25-years of crippling psychosis, and his story vibrates withpassionate critique of the mental health system. His journalist's piercingeye fixes the target, while the other eye darts around, taking us on aback-street tour of psychiatry's history, players, and struggles as Wydensearches for perspective on this arena.

What is the target?Is it Jeffhimself, who went from warm,extroverted child to introverted, erraticyouth, then back to a more normal, properly medicated 46-year old man? Isit mental illness itself?Which illness?Jeff's was diagnosed as"school phobia," "anxiety," "depression,""schizophrenia - paranoid type," then "malignant case ofmanic-depressive."Perhaps it is psychiatry itself, with its"foibles,follies, and failures," and its oddly noble persistancein the face of overwhelming enigmas?

In any case, the target keepsmoving. This conveys Wyden's sense of confusion and hair-pullingfrustration through the dozens of psychiatrists, neuroleptics that ravagedthe body while they calmed the mind, the hospitals, and halfway houses thatmake up Jeff's existence.He shows us the "split" between modernmedicaters who treat the physical, and the traditional Freudians whobelieve only in the unconscious and psychoanalytic.He describes thebizarre events of pharmacology finds and the equally bizarre trip throughFDA approval.He narrates the bitter 20-year feud between Dr Spitzer andproponents of DSM series and the older therapists who call it a"straightjacket."

The sound and fury, based on the void of theunknown, rages on.There is an abyss between etiologies, and chaos aboutcategories.Signs of schizophrenia dovetail so slyly into signs ofmanic-depression (hallucinations, hyperagitation) that even"experts" can't say which is primary. Medications for one crossover for the other."My learning curve was turning erratic,"complained Wyden when Clozaril came on the scene. ". . . Anythingmight work. Anything might fail. . . There are no true experts."

Atthe book's end, Jeff is converting from Clozapin to the newer Olanzapine(the "breakthrough"), and seems to be emerging from hisdemi-world into a more responsive, organized person. His real diagnosis isstill up for grabs.

The real breakthrough is hope, for today and fortomorrow, hope that research and medicine can cut through the profounddevastation of a broken brain. Wyden has painted a realistic picture ofmajor mental illness - ambiguous, unpredictable, messy, and bankrupting. Only those who have traveled that tunnel of despair can appreciate thecandle of this seemingly promising advance.

"Conquering Schizophrenia" is thoroughly dishonest book.
"Conquering Schizophrenia" lauds Zyprexa as conqueringschizophrenia. The truth of the matter is that Zyprexa is a very, veryunpleasant medication. Zyprexa is better than other antipsychotics, butthat is faint praise. Jeff, the author's son, is left with negativesymptoms but those are the worst symptoms. The book takes the E. FullerTorrey line. Someone with schizophrenia is dumber than a pigeon. A pigeongiven something good presses the lever. Someone with schizophrenia givensomething good refuses medication. When everyone is off dopamineantagonists then a book with the title "Conquering Schizophrenia"can be written.

Extremely helpful and hopeful. Well written and thorough.

"Conquering Schizophrenia: A Father, His Son, and A Medical Breakthrough", published by Knopf, January 1998, is a father's account of the life of his son Jeff.  Jeff's break came at age twenty-one.  The book chronicles the next twenty-five years along two interwoven paths: the events in the lives of Jeff and his family and the evolution of the mental-health field during this time --its trends, controversies, therapies, medicines, practitioners, advocacy groups, agencies,economics, politics, etc.

The father/author, Peter Wyden, has published a dozen books and was formerly a writer for Newsweek. He writes in a concise, organized, journalistic style that is mercifully free of any self aggrandizement that might have been expected (he candidly acknowledges his missteps) and of any excessive sentimentality (the story itself speaks eloquently of the emotions, frustrations, struggles and celebrations that were there throughout).  He levels some very valid criticisms without being strident.  It is carefully crafted with detailed back-of-the-book chapter notes, bibliography and index for the reader who wants to dig deeper.  It is very up to date, mentioning situations as of Fall, 1997. (Of course we Internet devotees want to know how things are going this morning.)

I strongly recommend this book highly to anyone whose life has been affected by schizophrenia or by any other serious mental illness. I have been struck over the last four years (our 23-year old son was diagnosed with schizophrenia four years ago) how much I read about one mental illness that relates to the others.  (Incidentally, I have no connection to the publisher or author. I wish I did know the Wydens personally).

Jeff was treated by over 50 docs over the 25-year period. He was "treated" in every imaginable theater from the renowned Menninger Clinic, where at the time of Jeff's stay early on, probably did more harm than good, to a run-down half- way house, where he was helped greatly by a dedicated, compassionate social worker.

His symptoms when bad were very bad. He once broke a nurse's nose. He was not an easy patient and not an easy son. But those that got to know the real Jeff were very fond of him. And to his father, even after spending 25 years of struggling with Jeff over meds, docs, hygiene, etc., maybe to some extent because of those struggles, Jeff was a hero, a theme often repeated.

Family support helped (and I suspect help greatly) throughout. There were some talk/cognitive therapies here and there that helped deal with some of the problems of the underlying illness. Jeff's manic periods were helped by lithium. There were other meds that I cannot recount. A breakthrough came with Clozapine, though negative symptoms, especially lack of motivation, remained and a purposeful day, much less the possibility of a job, were not on Jeff's radar screen and he spent his hours at the half-way house. The "conquering" word in the title refers to the next breakthrough which came with Olanzapine in 1996.  Some of the negative symptoms begin to remit. The book ends with Jeff beginning to take some steps into the mainstream world and he gets involved with a local church program and one day asks his dad "Do you think you could get me a watch? I'd like to get my days organized". (!) You would have to read the whole story to understand what a wonderful ending (beginning) this is.

Perhaps I wouldn't have divulged the ending if the book only dealt with Jeff's situation. It would have been a great book if limited to just the Jeff story. Many of us could identify and empathize and imagine our own books.  Not to take away from the story, the real strength of this book for me was the second interwoven thread that dealt with the many aspects of the mental-health system as it evolved over the same twenty-five-year period and the interplay of that with Jeff's life.  The author was relentless in his researching, advocating and mainly getting to know individuals who could help his son. He knew or got to know many of the movers and shakers, those at the tops of their fields, and gleaned from them a detailed and realistic survey of the battlefield on which his son found himself. I have spent a lot of time myself the last few years reading, surfing the Web, meeting, etc., but was left with a lot of questions and perhaps was left without a a good overall perspective of how the many pieces interact.

The author does a masterful job of covering many areas and gleaning the salient features, good and bad, things you are never going to read in a journal or hear admitted for the record. For example, from a discussion with Dr. Solomon Snyder, the inventor of Prozac: "One question has run through Snyder's professional life: What exactly causes schizophrenia? ... 'We know solittle he said', he said sadly. 'There's a screw loose, but we don't know which screw.'" I think I would like to have known this four years ago rather than having to discover it over time. The book is filled with nuggets like this.

The wide-ranging areas covered include: the slow, grudging acceptance of using meds for treatment, later the doctrinaire rejections by the biological guys of the talk therapy guys, (thank goodness my son's doc is dual-track), the fights over wording of the DSM-III, the history of anti-psychotic meds (amazing twists and turns), meds in the pipeline, the R. D. Laing school, orthomolecular treatment, psychosocial treatment, electro-convulsive therapy, schizophrenogenic mothers,"Toxic Psychology" book, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" movie, Marilyn Monroe, atrocious experiments and abridgment of patient rights, sexual abuse, the history of the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill, the champions of mental health legislation in Washington, the big, profitable, competitive pharmacy business (Eli Lily sales of Olanzapine in 1997 about $850 million), the National Institute of Mental Health, various studies and meta studies (and the ongoing puzzlement), interviews with consumers, interviews with the big names, etc.

He writes of many problems/challenges: the general stumbling nature of the progress in this field, the unknown causes of the illness, the problems of diagnosis and the diagnostic categories, questions about treatment, side- effect tradeoffs, stigma, managing the managers, family stresses, under funding of research and support agencies and the crushing work loads, poverty- producing expenses, bureaucracy, on and on.

I found the book very satisfying in many ways. It most of all helps sustain our hope. And makes us appreciate the fact that despite all the difficulties we families are facing in 1998, times and prospects were much worse just a few years age. It chronicles a story we can relate to and can compare to our families' stories.  It always held up the humanity, the personality of Jeff.

It shines a light on the battlefield that still has its challenges and dangers but through which we can now walk with more confidence and with a better chance of survival or even conquest.

I wish the best to the Wydens and to all the many families doing battle. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a study of schizophrenia in a modern psychiatric hospital.Its purpose is to develop a contextual understanding of schizophrenia by studying the clinical setting in which this disorder is experienced, diagnosed and treated, and it arises from an anthropological investigation of the day-to-day work of clinical staff. The author offers a penetrating analysis of the language used by hospital staff as they write and talk about their patients, and traces the evolution of the concept of schizophrenia, showing how contemporary theoretical constructs are applied by clinical staff. In its analysis of the schizophrenia team and of those experiencing the disorder, this book will reveal to mental health professionals many of the unspoken assumptions of their role.It will also confirm to social scientists and clinicians the power of the ethnographic approach in psychiatric research. ... Read more

Product Description
100 Questions & Answers About Your Child’S Schizophrenia Provides Clear, Straightforward Answers To Your Questions About Your Child’S Schizophrenia.Written By An Expert In The Field, This Practical, Easy-To-Read Guide Shows You And Your Family How To Cope With Symptoms, Where To Get The Best Treatment, What Medications Are Available For This Condition, And Much More.An Indispensible Quick Reference For Anyone Facing Childhood Schizophrenia! ... Read more

Product Description
Sorting out fact from fiction and myth from reality in schizophrenia is no easy task. In this book, one of the world's leading experts presents an absorbing account of what is actually known about the subject. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Diathesis Stressor Model for Schizophrenia
In this book, the author proposes the diathesis-stressor model of schizophrenia inheritability. This means that certain genes are activated by an environmental stressor such as drugs or trauma.He negates the environmental model for schizophrenia as well as the strictly Mendelian model.People who have close relatives with schizophrenia are more likely to pass down the genetic markers for this illness.

Citing adoption studies, he notes that children of schizophrenics who are adopted by non-schizophrenic parents have a higher likelihood of developing the disease than the general population.Concomitantly, children of parents who do not have schizophrenia, when adopted by parents with schizophrenia, have no more likelihood of developing the illness than the general population.

He looks at the properties of certain drugs that have a propensity to bring about schizophrenia and notes that they all have dopamine stimulating properties.

This is a very good book for anyone interested in schizophrenia.It can be somewhat technical so a background in psychology, social work, psychiatry or neuroscience is helpful.However, it is still accessible to anyone who has a specific interest in this illness.Another good book that is less technical is E. Fuller Torey's book, Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Patients, and Providers.

Well written and comprehensive
The overwhelming stress that a family experiences as a result of the diagnosis of a psychotic disorder is beyond words.One thing that can help is to learn as much about the disease as possible.Although a cure for schizophrenia has yet to be found, Gottesman has successfully outlined thisdisease in an understandable and informative book. It has provided mewith a much better understnding of a disease with an incredible socialstigma. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (8)

A Work of Art
This book is a masterpiece of typography. This is not mentioned enough on the amazon page here. As the book delves further into the schizophrenic/paranoid meditation on the concept of telephones, the text parallels the writing's insanity in the form of angled passages, strangely uncomfortable size variations, and some truly mind-bending blurred words. I was very intrigued by the notions of the telephone and its place in our world. It truly is an insane machine that we all take for granted. The book is very verbose, but anything less would undermine its authority and its lingual nature. I have to emphasize again how much value this book holds as a physical object. It is tall and narrow, black with subtle raised squares on the cover. The masterful use of text inside amplifies the sense of mystery and dread relating to its subject. It's like a tome, containing the untold secrets of our docile little telephones.

Avital is Cool--
those who want to protect the "integrity" of academia would not enjoy this book, but what can I say? Avital is a punk. She does not ask you to love her. Yet I find her writings generous; those who always feel to be orphans of society can understand what is going on in this book as well as her "Crack Wars" and recent "Stupidity." She is very much interested in transforming the world. I am contiually inspired by her writings. Aside from Nietzsche, she is the only one who has shown me that philosophy can be rock n roll.

jarred old coots
Ronell is the new scholarship. Praised be. Her style is innovative and she actually has something new to say about dead white guys. It's high time professors on respirators retired anyway. PS: She's the CHAIR of German Lit., Dr. Geezer.

Jarring is not the word
It is rare to encounter work so devoid of analysis coupled with boundless arrogance, and, literally, an attack on the reader's intelligence in advance of any argumentation. It's a bad, telling sign that the first wordsof the volume announce to the reader that the book "is going to resistyou": even Miss Ronell knows all too well the weaknesses of the textshe has produced! Why not responsibly address critical objections to thesubstance of the text, which her opening remarks indicate she's obviouslyhad, instead of claiming on an a priori basis intellectual brilliance nodissenting critic could possibly possess? This is a sad inaugural maneuver,one that fails to be masked by even the most elaborate typographical games."Jarring" is not the word for this book.

Jarring is not the word
It is rare to encounter work so devoid of analysis coupled with boundless arrogance, and, literally, an attack on the reader's intelligence in advance of any argumentation. It's a bad, telling sign that the first wordsof the volume announce to the reader that the book "is going to resistyou": even Miss Ronell knows all too well the weaknesses of the textshe has produced! Why not responsibly address critical objections to thesubstance of the text, which her opening remarks indicate she's obviouslyhad, instead of claiming on an a priori basis intellectual brilliance nodissenting critic could possibly possess? This is a sad inaugural maneuver,one that fails to be masked by even the most elaborate typographical games."Jarring" is not the word for this book. ... Read more

Product Description
A detailed booklet that describes Schizophrenia, symptoms, causes, and treatments, with information on getting help and coping. This booklet is also for family and friends that are looking for further understanding of schizophrenia.

You will learn in this Booklet:

What is schizophrenia?
What are the symptoms of schizophrenia?
When does it start and who gets it?
Are people with schizophrenia violent?
What about suicide?
What causes schizophrenia?
How is schizophrenia treated?
What is the role of the patient’s support system?
What is the outlook for the future?
How can a person participate in schizophrenia research?

You will also learn descriptions and solutions to these common terms:

about schizophrenia
bipolar schizophrenia
catatonic schizophrenia
childhood schizophrenia
children schizophrenia
disorganized schizophrenia
paranoid schizophrenia
paranoid schizophrenic
people with schizophrenia
schizophrenia
schizophrenia causes
schizophrenia disorder
schizophrenia people
schizophrenia research
schizophrenia symptoms
schizophrenia treatment
schizophrenia types
schizophrenic
symptoms of schizophrenia
the schizophrenia
what is schizophrenia
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A must have Schizophrenia Book for anyone...
A must have Schizophrenia Book for anyone looking for trusted information on mental health and schizophrenia.If you know someone, or think you know someone with this condition, you've got to get this, pluse it's cheap!

You Can't Get Any Better Information on Schizophrenia
This is your best choice if you are looking for the most information and for the best price. This information was taken straight from the U.S. Governmentand their publications.The U.S. government gives you the latest validated and accurate information available.If you are looking for Value and Accurate Information on Schizophrenia, this is it. ... Read more

Product Description
Unifies Dr. Abram Hoffer's How to Live with Schizophrenia and Common Questions about Schizophrenia, with informationon new research and treatments featuring the nutritional treatment of schizophrenia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Worth Every Penny!
Wow!I have learned more from this 213 page book than I have from five years worth of doctors.I have put into use some of the suggestions in the book and my family member is doing so well one of their medications is being eliminated.Well worth trying!
Healing Schizophrenia: Complementary Vitamin & Drug Treatments

Advisedly optimistic
When I stumbled across this book I was looking for some help for a sibling.My family and I had seen the detrimental tranquilizing affects of anti-psychotic meds first hand.Moreover, their side effects (even with the new generation of meds) can include tardive dyskinesia. This book provided some much needed hope that there might be something proposing an alternate.This is a well written book intended for comprehension by the general public. And while I am aware of the APA's 1973 criticisms of niacin therapy, I was disposed to try it anyway.Dr. Hoffer provided convincing anecdotal evidence that there was at least some efficacy in the use of his regimen.He does not claim that all schizophrenics will be entirely off anti-psyche meds with the use of his regimen.A nice side effect of niacin therapy (we use inositol hexanicotinate) at high dosages is a reduction of LDL cholesterol.At any rate, Hoffer's book ultimately convinced us to try the treatment.My sibling has now been off anti-depressants and anti-psyche meds for some time now. The tardive dyskinesia sx that had emerged are also gone.It is too early to state that my sibling is entirely free of previous sx and to be convinced that they may not return.However, even in the event they do return, my sibling will have had a reasonably lengthy "drug holiday".It has meant much to my sibling and to us to have allowed the personality, love of life, awareness, to have returned for a time.I highly recommend Abram Hoffer's book for those interested in learning about schizophrenia, its symptoms, causes, and potential alternative treatments.I might add that prayer and requests for divine intervention have been a big part of our treatment plan as well.

Response to criticism of niacin therapy
I feel I should offer a rebuttal to B. Chiko. The report referenced by Chiko is the 1973 APA psychological report, a report full of errors, misleading statements and poor arguments. Hoffer has claimed that Niacin & vitamin C works best on acute schizophrenics, the 1973 report used niacin alone on chronic schizophrenics. Hoffer wrote a well thought out retort to the 1973 report entitled `Megavitamin Therapy in reply to The American Psychiatric Association Task Force Report on Megavitamin and Orthomolecular Therapy in Psychiatry.' In it he details all of the misleading statements of the APA report, and I urge everyone here to actually read the 1973 report and its rebuttal. In fact, after reading this retort JR Wittenborn, one of the six authors of the APA report conducted a test of niacin using Hoffer's parameters (acute schizophrenics) and found positive results (A Search for Responders to Niacin Supplementation). Naturally none of the skepticsreference that study. Hoffer claims his theories have helped over 100,000 patients with niacin. Should we encourage all of them to throw their niacin in the trash? I urge everyone here swayed by either my or Chikos arguments to actually read the 1973 report, then read the rebuttal.

There was a drug for schizophrenia first discovered over 50 years ago, but because it was a medication unrelated to mental illness nobody wanted to use it. Doctors laughed at other doctors who prescribed it and many in the medical community wrote off how effective it was. However for the doctors willing to shrug off the criticism of the skeptics and who tried it noticed massive improvements. This drug was just an antihistamine, how could it treat schizophrenia? That drug was called thorazine (thorazine was originally an antihistamine), and it started the revolution that led to antipsychotic medications which has helped millions of people. Where would we be if we had just written off thorazine because it was `just an antihistamine'? Why is this better than writing off niacin for being `just a vitamin'?Would we be better off today as a community of medical patients if we had let the skeptics win on that battle? Would we have geodon, abilify or risperdal today if we hadn't fought back against the medical dogmatists fifty years ago?

All I know is my feelings of unreality, my magical thinking and my paranoia are not present now that I am on niacin therapy. No error laden, misleading study written 33 years ago is going to make me feel like I'm not better or take away the fact that I can function better.

comphrensive and to the point
Thanks God, for doctors like Abram Hoffer.His book(s) have given me great insight into the true nature of schizophrenia.My son may one day soon have a life because of Dr. Abram Hoffer and his students.

Seller Trustworthy!
Excellent Seller -- prompt sending of product; book as stated, fine condition! Thanks! ... Read more

Product Description
A detailed booklet that describes Schizophrenia, symptoms, causes, and treatments, with information on getting help and coping. This booklet is also for family and friends that are looking for further understanding of schizophrenia.

You will learn in this Booklet:

What is schizophrenia?
What are the symptoms of schizophrenia?
When does it start and who gets it?
Are people with schizophrenia violent?
What about suicide?
What causes schizophrenia?
How is schizophrenia treated?
What is the role of the patient’s support system?
What is the outlook for the future?
How can a person participate in schizophrenia research?

You will also learn descriptions and solutions to these common terms:

about schizophrenia
bipolar schizophrenia
catatonic schizophrenia
childhood schizophrenia
children schizophrenia
disorganized schizophrenia
paranoid schizophrenia
paranoid schizophrenic
people with schizophrenia
schizophrenia
schizophrenia causes
schizophrenia disorder
schizophrenia people
schizophrenia research
schizophrenia symptoms
schizophrenia treatment
schizophrenia types
schizophrenic
symptoms of schizophrenia
the schizophrenia
what is schizophrenia
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A must have Schizophrenia Book for anyone...
A must have Schizophrenia Book for anyone looking for trusted information on mental health and schizophrenia.If you know someone, or think you know someone with this condition, you've got to get this, pluse it's cheap!

You Can't Get Any Better Information on Schizophrenia
This is your best choice if you are looking for the most information and for the best price. This information was taken straight from the U.S. Governmentand their publications.The U.S. government gives you the latest validated and accurate information available.If you are looking for Value and Accurate Information on Schizophrenia, this is it. ... Read more

Product Description
Schizophrenia is widely considered the most severe and disabling of the mental illnesses. Yet recent research has demonstrated that many people afflicted with the disorder are able to recover to a significant degree.

Living Outside Mental Illness demonstrates the importance of listening to what people diagnosed with schizophrenia themselves have to say about their struggle, and shows the dramatic effect this approach can have on clinical practice and social policy. It presents an in-depth investigation, based on a phenomenological perspective, of experiences of illness and recovery as illuminated by compelling first-person descriptions.

This volume forcefully makes the case for the utility of qualitative methods in improving our understanding of the reasons for the success or failure of mental health services. The research has important clinical and policy implications, and will be of key interest to those in psychology and the helping professions as well as to people in recovery and their families. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent read
I bought the book for a friend who has mental illness.It put her on the next level of mental health.Highly recommend this book.

living outside mental illness
Excellent book for anyone who is interested in researching psychiatric rehabilitation ... Read more

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Medical Illness and Schizophrenia, Second Edition, is the only clinical guide exclusively on the treatment of medical comorbidities among patients with schizophrenia. Like its best-selling predecessor, this new, expanded edition compiles the latest research and clinical information regarding the crucial task of integrating medical and psychiatric care for the schizophrenic patient. The volume s fifteen chapters cover a wide range of common medical conditions, from obesity, heart disease, and diabetes to substance abuse and smoking. This edition also includes important new chapters on recent trends, behavioral treatments for weight loss, sexual dysfunction issues, and health outcomes of schizophrenia treatment in children, adolescents, and pregnant and breastfeeding patients.As the only clinical text of its kind, the expanded second edition of Medical Illness and Schizophrenia is an invaluable resource for hospital or community-based psychiatric physicians, family medicine and psychiatry residents, nurses, psychologists, and healthcare professionals. It is a comprehensive, practical manual that serves as a reference for the medical management of severely mentally ill patients across the age spectrum in both inpatient and outpatient settings. ... Read more

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This book will empower those who are suffering from the hell of schizophrenia.It is a Godsend as it provides the key that will give a person the chance to get better or recover from this disease.The author enlightens her readers as she takes them on an incredible journey as a little girl while growing up with relatives that suffered from mental illness.As an adult she finally escapes the clutches of an evil relative.Life takes another turn for her as she and her husband are confronted with a most difficult challenge when their young teenage son is stricken with schizophrenia.There is a very happy ending though, as she discovers that there is an alternative treatment that sets her son free him from a living hell on earth.With the joy of her son's recovery she shares with her readers the seriousness of how orthomolecular medicine played a significant role with his recovery. This is a must read for all family members, doctors, alternative medicine practitioners, school teachers and counselors. ... Read more

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good
Overall its is a good book and well written. Its not quite a cure for schizophrenia, but gives a buffer and a relief from the the illness through prescription drugs and Dr. Abram Hoffer's orthomoleculer medicine.
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The experience of madness – which might also be referred to more formally as ‘schizophrenia’ or ‘psychosis’ – consists of a complex, confusing and often distressing collection of experiences, such as hearing voices or developing unusual, seemingly unfounded beliefs. Madness, in its various forms and guises, seems to be a ubiquitous feature of being human, yet our ability to make sense of madness, and our knowledge of how to help those who are so troubled, is limited.

Making Sense of Madness explores the subjective experiences of madness. Using clients' stories and verbatim descriptions, it argues that the experience of 'madness' is an integral part of what it is to be human, and that greater focus on subjective experiences can contribute to professional understandings and ways of helping those who might be troubled by these experiences.

Areas of discussion include:

• how people who experience psychosis make sense of it themselves
• scientific/professional understandings of ‘madness'
• what the public thinks about ‘schizophrenia’ 

Making Sense of Madness will be essential reading for all mental health professionals as well as being of great interest to people who experience psychosis and their families and friends.

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This book is written to inform and reinforce the idea of hope, recovery, and a normal life for people affected by mental illness. The stigma of mental illness hurts schizophrenics and their families. Stigma, the invisible beast, limits peoples' access to services in the community and even support from family but we can educate and fight against stigma. Despite their disability, people with schizophrenia have normal or above average intelligence and may be highly creative. Antidiscrimination legislation is needed, along with support for families and communities striving to include those with schizophrenia. ... Read more

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Thorough critical analysis.
This is an excellent addition to the library of any serious student of Vonnegut's works. Broer's insightful examinations of Vonnegut's writings add a new dimension to the reader's comprehension ... Read more

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Praise for the Clinician's Guide to Evidence-Based Practice Series

"A major stumbling block to the adoption of evidence-based practice in the real world of clinical practice has been the absence of clinician-friendly guides suitable for learning specific empirically supported treatments. Such guides need to be understandable, free of technical research jargon, infused with clinical expertise, and rich with real-life examples. Rubin and Springer have hit a home run with the Clinician's Guide to Evidence-Based Practice Series, which has all of these characteristics and more."
—Edward J. Mullen, Willma and Albert Musher Chair Professor, Columbia University

State-of-the-art, empirical support for psychosocial treatment of schizophrenia

Part of the Clinician's Guide to Evidence-Based Practice Series, Psychosocial Treatment of Schizophrenia provides busy mental health practitioners with detailed, step-by-step guidance for implementing clinical interventions that are supported by the latest scientific evidence.

This thorough, yet practical, reference draws on a roster of experts and researchers in the field who have assembled state-of-the-art knowledge into this well-rounded guide. Each chapter serves as a practitioner-focused how-to reference and covers interventions that have the best empirical support for the psychosocial treatment of schizophrenia, including:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy
• Assertive community treatment
• Critical time intervention
• Motivational interviewing for medication adherence
• Psychoeducational family groups
• Illness management and recovery

Easy-to-use and accessible in tone, Psychosocial Treatment of Schizophrenia is an indispensable resource for practitioners who would like to implement evidence-based, compassionate, effective interventions in the care of people with schizophrenia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

More Taxes! Less Bread!
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus radically reconceieve the cartography of politics fused with a reconceptualization of desire, a desire that eschews and condemens Freud and Lacan's egregious transmogrification of what Deleuze and Guttari espouse its fundamentally positive nature. So the question that undergirds the text 'why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as thought it were their salvation?" posed by Reich and Spinoza because a diving board for Deleuze and Guattari as they excavate and render in new ways how the nature of desire has become directed towards socially sanctioned avenues, avenues that became conducive for the triumph of capitalism.

no easier
One would think postgraduate degrees would make these types of works readable, but unless there is plenty of time to spend on it, I think it advisable to purchase also some sort of Anti-Oedipus companion. Who knows, perhaps one has also to be smoking something. Despite the previous, one can get sufficient glimpses of some creative thinking and pondering about modern life in general and about western capitalist societies in particular, enough to make one pay close attention or go for a post-second reading. Foucault's preface misleads one into thinking the book is a piece of cake: great marketing strategy.

guide to an anti-fascist life
While studying philosophy at university, I was fortunate enough to have read this book. Some years hence, I am now middle management at a Fortune 500 company (it's very strange to me), and have just recently re-read it. The ideas about egalitarian models of leadership in this book are almost solely responsible for allowing me to remain a fundamentally good person. Without this book, I know there would have been instances where I would have done things unthinkingly and in error.

Amazing Stories
Although Deleuze and Guattari are usually invoked as part of a "postmodernist" litany, this work is refreshingly different from most postwar French theory. Derrida and Foucault, for all their revolutionary ambitions, are fairly traditional *maitre-penseurs*: the expectation is that you have a tip-top understanding of Hegel and other historical heavyweights, the better to appreciate their reversal. By contrast, *Anti-Oedipus* resembles nothing so much as the "philosophical" part of a work of hip science fiction: the line of argument is neither dialectically nor formally elaborated, but asserts only its plausibility in the context of the world being evoked.

I say this as a form of praise: in fact, unless you are (somewhat foolishly) expecting that an "intimate" knowledge of this book will advance your academic fortunes, your reading doesn't have to be especially careful to get something useful out of the book. As for its relation to thinkers who are properly venerated in the academy, it is (for all its contrariness) more accepting of Freud and Marx than most contemporary discourse is, so it actually isn't all that devastating a critique of them. But the enthusiasm they display for new hypotheses about these two is infectious: this is a book that makes you want to read *more* economics and psychology, not slam your head against the wall in protest against the impossibility of all understanding.

In the theory of schizophrenia advanced here, the "clinical" schizophrenic is carefully marked off from their treatment of schizophrenia as a process, so the anti-psychiatric implications of the book are only of the most general kind. Furthermore, a great deal of this process is elaborated with respect to imaginative literature by eccentric writers, not case studies of the clinically ill. But this means the results are not fundamentally incompatible with a contemporary understanding of psychotic illnesses: what opposes their resituation of schizoid desire as located at the most basic levels of work and social interaction are the normative intentions of those who study and control (or simply detest) the mentally ill, not scientific findings per se.

A thought-provoking book requiring no "theory" masochism to enjoy.

Original, brilliant... insightful, but distorted in perspective.
Why am I giving this book a five star rating? Because this work is an effort at a new theory that is systematic and terminologically consistent and must have been a torture for the writers to conjure up in their head.

It certainly is a torture to read this work. Not because I can't understand hard-core philosophy - I have read, understood and liked Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre and Derrida, considered amongst the most abstruse stylists - but because it is difficult to empathize with writers who characterize themselves and their readers as 'desiring machines' rather than as subjects with consciousness and will.

Is desire the only thing that defines human beings - what about will, thinking, compassion, judgment? And further why am I supposed to be a machine and in what sense? These are the questions that came to my mind. The authors never explain. The question of the subject is dismissed in one sentence.

It is also difficult to agree with writers who dismiss all seeking of power and all active resistance by implication as fascism and preach escape/flight as the most radical ideology of resistance and hope.

And it is difficult to find hope in the vain jargon of molecular vs. molar, in the lines of escape or flight, or in a schizoid approach to life (a schizophrenic has no control over himself - is a machine and hence is the authors' favorite).

The authors fail in their synthesis of Marx and Freud although they come close and fail to understand Nietzsche, one of their favorite philosophers. Marx, Freud and Nietzsche would turn violently in their graves, if they ever know what Deleuze/Guattari did to their philosophies. They speculations on incest, kinship etc., are just too weak, sketchy and merely assertoric to be taken seriously.

I do not endorse the philosophy of Deleuze/Guattari. To be sure they offer brilliant insights but their line of argument has as many holes as Swiss cheese.

Yet there are a few things that are brilliant in the work and it certainly remains an original and challenging work. Having, stated my disappointment with the work, now let me also state the better aspects of this work. This work has a very well argued theory of control mechanisms in primitive, barbarian and capitalist societies.

The authors rightly point out that capitalism governs well because it always generates new rules to survive (new axiomatic) and controls because all social codes are 'decoded' (de-codified) into flows (loose, lawlike systems of control) and de-territorialized. (Other writers have explained the same things in simpler jargon, but Deleuze-Guattari need to be given due credit for the brilliance of their analysis of capitalism, although their libidnalization of economics doesn't add anything valueable to the analysis of either libido or economics and seems forced).

The other hallmark of this work is that it offers one of the more interesting critiques of Freud's Oedipal complex, psychotherapy and its role in making humans conformist. They demolish the Daddy-Mommy-Me triangle and its implications in making us conformists quite effectively.

However, it may be borne in mind that there have been better criticisms of Freud's theories and Deleuze/Guattari are in some respects more Freudian than Freud with their libidinal interpretations of human beings as desiring machines and of economy as investment of desire (libidnal economy).

To sum up, this work is worth reading for its analysis of capitalism, and to some extent for its critique of psychoanalysis. However this is not a work that offers hope for the oppressed or an agenda for political action although followers of Deleuze/Guattari like Antonio Negri and Alain Badiou take their philosophy in a more positive direction. The best portion is the third section, followed by second. The least satisfactory portions and the last and the first, although they are essential to read in order to understand the relevant middle portion of the work.

And of course human beings are not desiring machines no matter what Deleuze/Guattari say. Beyond a metaphor, machinism is delusory. We are what we are. Happy to be human and animal rather than machines. Much as post-structuralist and post-modernists dismiss the question of the subject, the question remains - alive and active and kicking. ... Read more

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Schizophrenia is one of the most complex and disabling diseases to affect mankind.   Relatively little is known about its nature and its origins, and available treatments are inadequate for most patients. As a result, there are inevitable controversies about what causes it, how to diagnose it, and how best to treat it.   However, in the past decade, there has been an explosion of new research, with dramatic discoveries involving genetic etiology and epidemiological risk factors.  There has also been a catalog of new drugs coming to market, and controversy about the relative advantages and disadvantages of newer compared with older therapies.   In addition, developing technologies in genomics, molecular biology and neuroimaging provide streams of new information.

This book represents a definitive, essential, and up-to-date reference text on schizophrenia. It extensively and critically digests and clarifies recent advances and places them within a clinical context.  The Editors (one American and one British), highly respected clinical psychiatrists and researchers and acknowledged experts on schizophrenia, have again assembled an outstanding group of contributors from the USA, UK, Europe and Australia, It will be of value to practising psychiatrists and to trainees, as well as to clinical and neuroscience researchers interested in keeping up with this field or coming into it.

The book consists of four sections:   descriptive aspects, biological aspects, physical treatments, and psychological and social aspects.   It reviews the theoretical controversies over symptomatology, classification and aetiology (particularly pertinent as DSM-V is being developed), the relationship of schizophrenia to the other psychoses, the significance of positive and negative symptoms and pre-morbid personality. It describes a variety of approaches to integrating the vast research data about schizophrenia, including neurodevelopmental, genetic, pharmacological, brain imaging and psychological findings. The biological treatment section reviews the comparative efficacy of various drugs, the management of drug-resistant patients and both neurological and metabolic complications. The final section looks at psychological therapies, social outcomes, and the economics of schizophrenia.  ... Read more