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How To Become a Schizophrenic: The Case Against Biological Psychiatry
“…demonstrates the physical, psychological, and social harm resulting from the label schizophrenic and the continuous need to reexamine the underpinnings and attitudes of psychiatry.”
— Booklist
“Of all the books written about schizophrenia…none is more comprehensive, accurate, thorough, and clearer in style and statement than John Modrow’s classic How to Become a Schizophrenic . Modrow, who is a recovered schizophrenic and is, perhaps, the unrecognized and unappreciated world’s foremost authority on this disorder, has performed a truly invaluable service and has made the major contribution to our understanding of the causes and cures of this pseudodisease.”
—Robert A Baker, Ph.D., former chairman of the Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky; author of They Call It Hypnosis, Hidden Voices and Visions from Within and Mind Are We Obsessed with Therapy?
“One of the best things I’ve read on the subject…I am struck by the richness of the ideas and the research and the soundness of the conclusions.”
—Peter Breggin, M.D., founder and director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology; author of Toxic Psychiatry and Talking Back to Prozac
“…a very important contribution to the field.”
—Theodore Lidz, M.D., former chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Yale University; author of The Origin and Treatment of Schizophrenic Disorders and Schizophrenia and the Family
“…well researched and easily readable (a difficult combination to achieve)!”
—Judi Chamberlin, author of On Our Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System
“…meticulously challenges all the major research that claims that schizophrenia is a biological disorder.”
—Ty C. Colbert, Ph.D., author of Broken Brains or Wounded What Causes Mental Illness
“Before reading the book, I was largely convinced that schizophrenia was primarily a brain disease. Modrow has forced me to take a second look, however, and reconsider the psychological causes of the condition.”
— The Vancouver Sun
“…it is ennobling that despite bad and discouraging treatment he was able to understand himself and others, and share that acquired knowledge in an accurate and helpful way.”
—Bertram P. Karon, PhD., professor of clinical psychology, Michigan State University; author of Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia
“…gives clear proof that there’s real hope. Truly a remarkable book!”
—Alan Caruba, Bookviews
— Booklist
“Of all the books written about schizophrenia…none is more comprehensive, accurate, thorough, and clearer in style and statement than John Modrow’s classic How to Become a Schizophrenic . Modrow, who is a recovered schizophrenic and is, perhaps, the unrecognized and unappreciated world’s foremost authority on this disorder, has performed a truly invaluable service and has made the major contribution to our understanding of the causes and cures of this pseudodisease.”
—Robert A Baker, Ph.D., former chairman of the Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky; author of They Call It Hypnosis, Hidden Voices and Visions from Within and Mind Are We Obsessed with Therapy?
“One of the best things I’ve read on the subject…I am struck by the richness of the ideas and the research and the soundness of the conclusions.”
—Peter Breggin, M.D., founder and director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology; author of Toxic Psychiatry and Talking Back to Prozac
“…a very important contribution to the field.”
—Theodore Lidz, M.D., former chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Yale University; author of The Origin and Treatment of Schizophrenic Disorders and Schizophrenia and the Family
“…well researched and easily readable (a difficult combination to achieve)!”
—Judi Chamberlin, author of On Our Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System
“…meticulously challenges all the major research that claims that schizophrenia is a biological disorder.”
—Ty C. Colbert, Ph.D., author of Broken Brains or Wounded What Causes Mental Illness
“Before reading the book, I was largely convinced that schizophrenia was primarily a brain disease. Modrow has forced me to take a second look, however, and reconsider the psychological causes of the condition.”
— The Vancouver Sun
“…it is ennobling that despite bad and discouraging treatment he was able to understand himself and others, and share that acquired knowledge in an accurate and helpful way.”
—Bertram P. Karon, PhD., professor of clinical psychology, Michigan State University; author of Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia
“…gives clear proof that there’s real hope. Truly a remarkable book!”
—Alan Caruba, Bookviews
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First published September 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 25, 2014
Modrow, a self-described cured schizophrenic, begins and ends his book with extensive citations of psychiatric studies, but the bulk of the book is an extremely engaging, gritty account of his childhood, growing up in the 1940s and 50s with a somewhat vagrant, impoverished and neglectful family.
As a kid, the author establishes himself pretty convincingly as a weirdo outcast, the one making disgusting mud pies, getting in fights, saying bizarre things, hating the attention that he got.
He's basically aimless, getting into all kinds of random solitary mischief--for the most part (with one shocking exception), well within what you'd expect from a kid left to himself around trailer parks and hobo camps.
He describes himself frankly, without justifying any of his behavior, leaving no doubt that he was a very difficult child. But it's when he gets in trouble with his parents, and psychiatrists, that a bad situation gets much worse.
Modrow describes his schizophrenic episodes as frankly and vividly as everything else. He captures the ecstasy and the terror, the logorrhea, the drive to proselytize. Particularly haunting is his vision of car headlights at night, and his perception of them as the eyes of demons, seeing right through him, measuring his soul. It's terrifying, but also exhilarating; a manic state, a frisson.
It seems clear that schizophrenia is a symptom, a state of mind that's part of a continuum, merely an extension of other "normal" states of being. People in religious ecstasy speak of visions, of spirits, maybe even roll on the floor and speak nonsense--people who are otherwise completely sane. Or deemed sane by their culture, anyway, and that's all that matters.
He has many schizophrenic friends. Maybe they seek each other out, or do they just happen to be drawn to the same desolate places? As a child, he encounters an older man, a drifter who gives the boy religious advice. As an adult, he has friends--close friends, one of whom, in a touching anecdote, comes to share a joke delusion with Modrow. Modrow sees this interaction as therapeutic, a very compelling idea (perhaps explored more fully in The Three Christs of Ypsilanti).
Religion and schizophrenia are closely intertwined--a theme deeply explored, anecdotally but effectively. Modrow had always admired John the Baptist. At the moment of his "revelation," he understands, in ecstasy, that he IS John the Baptist. This epiphany is triggered by reading, in the gospels, that Jesus was Elijah. If Jesus could be someone else, then so could he--and in a single, ecstatic instant, everything just fell into place.
There are some weaknesses. Toward the end especially, Modrow's dogmatism and anger at the medical establishment begin to show through, and while the volume of citations and critique of the state of research are commendable, the persecuted tone detracts from his credibility.
Also, about the mushrooms? In just one sentence, as part of an unrelated story, and only in an appendix, Modrow mentions that he was at one point was growing hallucinogenic mushrooms in jars. It's a tantalizing detail, especially given the themes of the book. Were the mushrooms an attempt to self-medicate? An attempt to intentionally explore and thus control his altered state of consciousness? This omission is especially problematic, as Modrow has a lot to say about the profit-driven pharmaceutical industry and its many unsuccessful attempts to treating schizophrenia--unsuccessful except through effectively lobotomizing the sufferers. But if Modrow was exploring alternative medications, whether mind-expanding or mind-numbing, legal or not, he should have said something.
In the end, Modrow's story gives enormous hope to schizophrenics, if not to the institutionalized. It's humanizing, life-affirming, honest, fascinating. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone with loved ones who have dissociative
As a kid, the author establishes himself pretty convincingly as a weirdo outcast, the one making disgusting mud pies, getting in fights, saying bizarre things, hating the attention that he got.
He's basically aimless, getting into all kinds of random solitary mischief--for the most part (with one shocking exception), well within what you'd expect from a kid left to himself around trailer parks and hobo camps.
He describes himself frankly, without justifying any of his behavior, leaving no doubt that he was a very difficult child. But it's when he gets in trouble with his parents, and psychiatrists, that a bad situation gets much worse.
Modrow describes his schizophrenic episodes as frankly and vividly as everything else. He captures the ecstasy and the terror, the logorrhea, the drive to proselytize. Particularly haunting is his vision of car headlights at night, and his perception of them as the eyes of demons, seeing right through him, measuring his soul. It's terrifying, but also exhilarating; a manic state, a frisson.
It seems clear that schizophrenia is a symptom, a state of mind that's part of a continuum, merely an extension of other "normal" states of being. People in religious ecstasy speak of visions, of spirits, maybe even roll on the floor and speak nonsense--people who are otherwise completely sane. Or deemed sane by their culture, anyway, and that's all that matters.
He has many schizophrenic friends. Maybe they seek each other out, or do they just happen to be drawn to the same desolate places? As a child, he encounters an older man, a drifter who gives the boy religious advice. As an adult, he has friends--close friends, one of whom, in a touching anecdote, comes to share a joke delusion with Modrow. Modrow sees this interaction as therapeutic, a very compelling idea (perhaps explored more fully in The Three Christs of Ypsilanti).
Religion and schizophrenia are closely intertwined--a theme deeply explored, anecdotally but effectively. Modrow had always admired John the Baptist. At the moment of his "revelation," he understands, in ecstasy, that he IS John the Baptist. This epiphany is triggered by reading, in the gospels, that Jesus was Elijah. If Jesus could be someone else, then so could he--and in a single, ecstatic instant, everything just fell into place.
There are some weaknesses. Toward the end especially, Modrow's dogmatism and anger at the medical establishment begin to show through, and while the volume of citations and critique of the state of research are commendable, the persecuted tone detracts from his credibility.
Also, about the mushrooms? In just one sentence, as part of an unrelated story, and only in an appendix, Modrow mentions that he was at one point was growing hallucinogenic mushrooms in jars. It's a tantalizing detail, especially given the themes of the book. Were the mushrooms an attempt to self-medicate? An attempt to intentionally explore and thus control his altered state of consciousness? This omission is especially problematic, as Modrow has a lot to say about the profit-driven pharmaceutical industry and its many unsuccessful attempts to treating schizophrenia--unsuccessful except through effectively lobotomizing the sufferers. But if Modrow was exploring alternative medications, whether mind-expanding or mind-numbing, legal or not, he should have said something.
In the end, Modrow's story gives enormous hope to schizophrenics, if not to the institutionalized. It's humanizing, life-affirming, honest, fascinating. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone with loved ones who have dissociative
February 5, 2016
Not to be missed. The author not only takes on the "chemical imbalance" and other psuedo-scientific theories of schizophrenia that are so popular at the moment, but he explains how he feels people really do decompensate into psychosis, and what will really help them get better. This is reasearch-based and refuses to believe the ad copy circulated by pharmaceutical companies. Great stuff. A must for anyone who has schizophrenia or anyone who cares about someone who has it. NAMI's true believers be warned: you will not like one word of this book.
April 19, 2009
The author argues that schizophrenia is caused by experience and can, with enough time, be cured with talk therapy - a startling and controversial view, but he makes a strong case for it. My own experience treating people with schizophrenia leads me to believe that this view might sometimes be right, but that the use of anti-psychotic medications is also usually appropriate and, since the introduction of drugs with fewer negative side effects than those in the first generation, more ethical, because it usually relieves the symptoms of psychosis much faster, and thereby relieves the suffering of the person being treated - this author's very argument that schizophrenia is a manifestation of a state of terror so intense that it makes reality intolerable seems to me to be an argument for ending that terror as quickly as possible.
January 31, 2023
If you see my books, you understand that I'm a spiritual seeker. Certain spiritual experience may resemble the symptoms of schizophrenia, so I read the book to investigate the truth.
Only you yourself can know if you have a mental illness and this book can be helpful to build an arsenal of defensive arguments if you happen to come across the religious cult of Psychiatry.
Only you yourself can know if you have a mental illness and this book can be helpful to build an arsenal of defensive arguments if you happen to come across the religious cult of Psychiatry.
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July 29, 2010apa sebab seseorang menjadi skitzo?
penasaran bgt ne...
penasaran bgt ne...
March 9, 2011
This was a great book. Good writing. The story itself was painful at times. Modrow is exceptionally open about his experiences with schizophrenia.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews