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Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0679446710
ISBN-13: 9780679446712
Jan 1998
Publisher: Random House Inc
335 pages
Language: English |
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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 View all Good Items |
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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| Size | | Length: | 335 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 23.2 oz |
Industry Reviews
Writer Wyden (Stella, LJ 10/15/92) turns his journalist's attentions on his own family, mixing the story of his son's nearly 30-year illness with a history of schizophrenia and its treatments. The personal story, particularly the opening chapters describing Jeff's descent, elicits compassion as Wyden admits his own mistakes and misunderstandings and is forgiving of professionals' missteps. The anecdotal history of medical and psychological treatments is equally well-laid out, peppered with passionate rebukes of sometimes brutal therapies. And the story of the recent discovery of a promising new drug is uplifting. Unfortunately, Wyden has trouble blending these various parts, and at times seems to use the historical analysis to distance himself from his son's story. Two fine books combined into one imperfect effort, this is nonetheless a moving work that will be both informative and comforting to those who are close to one of the 250,000 Americans suffering from schizophrenia. For medium and large public libraries and speical collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/97.] Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Scheeren
Wyden has written one of the better memoirs of schizophrenia, largely because he makes it clear that, despite the confidence of the mental health profession, nobody "knows precisely what schizophrenia is or how to diagnose it." Diagnosed with acute schizophrenia in 1972, Wyden's son, Jeff, now in his mid-40s, underwent a gauntlet of treatments. Wyden (Suburbia's Coddled Kids) provides a clear-eyed account of these regimens of behavior modification, electroshock, mega-vitamins, primal-scream therapy, family therapy, psychoanalysis at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kans., and a parade of antipsychotic drugs. Today, his father attributes Jeff's dramatic improvement to the experimental drug Olanapine, approved by the FDA last October. Parents, relatives and friends of schizophrenics will find Wyden empathic company as he juggles the roles of caring parent and investigative journalist, weaving in pertinent case histories, current research, battles between drug companies to develop antischizophrenic medications and a history of the treatment of the disease. He's particularly illuminating when describing the conflict between those who offered a physiological explanation of schizophrenia and those who, long after the evidence pointed irrefutably to the brain's chemistry, still clung to a narrow psychological explanation. (Jan.)
Lopate
Writer Wyden (Stella) turns his journalist's attentions on his own family, mixing the story of his son's nearly 30-year illness with a history of schizophrenia and its treatments. The personal story . . . elicits compassion. . . . The anecdotal history of medical and psychological treatments is equally well-laid out, peppered with passionate rebukes of sometimes brutal therapies. And the story of the recent discovery of a promising new drug is uplifting. Unfortunately, Wyden has trouble blending these various parts, and at times seems to use the historical analysis to distance himself from his son's story. Two fine books combined into one imperfect effort, this is nonetheless a moving work. . . . For medium and large public libraries and special collections.
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company.
Bryant
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