Books about Schizophrenics from Amazon.com

The autobiography of a recovered schizophrenic. Lori Schiller was the only daughter of an affluent, close-knit American family who took to the New York streets dressed in rags and lapsed into a world of suicide attempts, hospitalizations, half-way houses, relapses, and constant, withering despair..
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Fact: A lonely woman was murdered by her disturbed coworker.

Fact: The police have investigated

Fact: The case is closed.

But facts are not truth. And the truth was supposed to stay buried with the dead. . . .

From acclaimed author Sean Chercover comes the relentlessly gripping follow-up to his award-winning debut novel, Big City, Bad Blood

Trigger City

Still suffering the physical and emotional consequences of going up against the Chicago Outfit, PI Ray Dudgeon needs an easy gig. A routine investigation of an open-and-shut case sounds perfect. The job is a loser, but the pay is good, and maybe Ray will bring some peace to a grieving father who yearns to learn the truth about the daughter he never really knew.

But what begins as routine soon spirals out of control. The victim was not simply a quiet, shy, unassuming single woman whose luck ran out. She lived a double life, working in the shadowy realm of covert intelligence. In a world built on secrets and lies, she fought bravely for truth—and gave her life in the fight.

Suddenly, Ray finds himself caught in a war between private contractors and the darkest sectors of our own government—a war that stretches from the closed-door hearings of Congress to the frontlines of Iraq.

Ensnared in a conspiracy of darkness that weaves its way through the very fabric of the nation, Ray must discover who's really pulling the strings before he becomes collateral damage in America's war on terror.No peril Ray Dudgeon has faced in the past could've prepared him for this. The stakes couldn't be any higher, and no enemy could be more powerful. Ray is in way over his head.

And his greatest enemy may be himself.

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Set against the backdrop of two neighboring Southern towns, Sufficient Grace is the powerful, affecting story of two families over the course of a year, from one Easter season to the next.One quiet spring day, Gracie Hollaman hears voices in her head that tell her to get in her car and leave her entire life behind -- her home, her husband, her daughter, her very identity. Gracie's subsequent journey releases her genius for painting and effects profound changes in the lives of everyone around her.

A spellbinding work, Sufficient Grace explores the power of personal transformation and redemption, and the many ordinary and extraordinary ways they come to pass through faith, love, motherhood, art, even food. This poignant, poetic study of the human condition affirms the enduring importance of relationships and the strength we derive from them, even though we sometimes have to leave behind an old identity in order to discover our soul.

Beautifully paced, filled with unforgettable characters, Sufficient Grace reveals the vital place that spirit and belonging have in every inner life -- and in the everyday world..
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During his second semester at college, Kurt Snyder became convinced that he was about to discover a fabulously important mathematical principle, spending hours lost in daydreams about numbers and symbols. In time, his thoughts took a darker turn, and he became preoccupied with the idea that cars were following him, or that strangers wanted to harm him. Kurt's mind had been hijacked by schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder that typically strikes during the late teen or young adult years.
In Me, Myself, and Them, Kurt, now an adult, looks back from the vantage point of recovery and eloquently describes the debilitating changes in thoughts and perceptions that took hold of his life during his teens and twenties. As a memoir, this book is remarkable for its unvarnished look at the slow and difficult process of coming back from severe mental illness. Yet Kurt's memoir is only half the story. With the help of psychiatrist Raquel E. Gur, M.D., Ph.D., and veteran science writer Linda Wasmer Andrews, Kurt paints the big picture for others affected by adolescent schizophrenia. Drawing on the latest scientific and medical evidence, he explains how to recognize warning signs, where to find help, and what treatments have proved effective. Kurt also offers practical advice on topics of particular interest to young people, such as suggestions on managing the illness at home, school, and work, and in relationships with family and friends.
Part of the Adolescent Mental Health Initiative series of books written specifically for teens and young adults, My, Myself, and Them offers hope to young people who are struggling with schizophrenia, helping them to understand and manage the challenges of this illness and go on to lead healthy lives..
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Elyn Saks is a success by any measure: she’s an endowed professor at the prestigious University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She has managed to achieve this in spite of being diagnosed as schizophrenic and given a "grave" prognosis -- and suffering the effects of her illness throughout her life.

Saks was only eight, and living an otherwise idyllic childhood in sunny 1960s Miami, when her first symptoms appeared in the form of obsessions and night terrors. But it was not until she reached Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar that her first full-blown episode, complete with voices in her head and terrifying suicidal fantasies, forced her into a psychiatric hospital.

Saks would later attend Yale Law School where one night, during her first term, she had a breakdown that left her singing on the roof of the law school library at midnight. She was taken to the emergency room, force-fed antipsychotic medication, and tied hand-and-foot to the cold metal of a hospital bed. She spent the next five months in a psychiatric ward.

So began Saks’s long war with her own internal demons and the equally powerful forces of stigma. Today she is a chaired professor of law who researches and writes about the rights of the mentally ill. She is married to a wonderful man.

In The Center Cannot Hold, Elyn Saks discusses frankly and movingly the paranoia, the inability to tell imaginary fears from real ones, and the voices in her head insisting she do terrible things, as well as the many obstacles she overcame to become the woman she is today. It is destined to become a classic in the genre..
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Incorporating the most up-to-date concepts and clinical tools, the newly revised and expanded second edition of this popular manual is even more user-friendly than its predecessor. Presented are an empirically tested format and ready-made curricula for skills training groups in a range of settings. Part I takes therapists and counselors step by step through assessing clients' existing skills, teaching new skills, and managing common treatment challenges. Part II comprises over 60 ready-to-photocopy skill sheets (15 more than the previous edition), each one a complete lesson plan in itself. Other features of the second edition include an important new chapter on working with dually diagnosed clients; an overview of the empirical support for the approach; and additional assessment forms. Of special value for practitioners, the new 8 1/2" x 11" format makes it easier than ever to reproduce and use the practical materials in the book.
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June was 9 years old when she came home from school and her schizophrenic mother met her at the door, angrily demanding to know, "Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?" In another family, Tess repeatedly saw her mother wait outside church then scream at family friends as the emerged, accusing them of spying on and plotting to kill her. Five-year-old Tess and her 7-year-old brother would just cry, begging their mother to take them home as onlookers stared. These are just two of the stories gathered for this book as psychotherapist Nathiel conducted interviews. The children, now adults, grew up with mentally ill mothers at a time when mental illness was even more stigmatizing than it is today. They are what Nathiel calls "the daughters of madness," and their young lives were lived on shaky ground. "Telling someone that there's mental illness in your family, and watching the reaction is not for the faint-hearted," the therapist says, quoting another's research. But, she adds, "Telling them that it is your mother who is mentally ill certainly ups the ante." A veteran therapist with 35 years experience, Nathiel takes us into this traumatic world--with each of her chapters covering a major developmental period for the daughter of a mentally ill mother--and then explains how these now-adult daughters faced and coped with mental illness in their mothers. While the stories of these daughters are central to the book, Nathiel also offers her professional insights into exactly how maternal impairment affects infants, children, and adolescents. Women, significantly more than men, are often diagnosed with serious mental illness after they become parents. So what effect does a mentally ill mother have on a growing child, teenager or adult daughter, who looks to her not only for the deepest and most abiding love, but also a sense of what the world is all about? Nathiel also makes accessible the latest research on interpersonal neurobiology, attachment, and the way a child's brain and mind develop in the contest of that relationship. Some of the major topics addressed include: BLFeelings of guilt in the child - Is it my fault? BLKeeping the secret BLRole reversal - when child acts as parent BLFear of the same fate BLBuilding resilience and accepting help BLInsights from daughters of mothers who were schizophrenic, psychotic, severely depressed, paranoid, and personality-disordered..
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