The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks. New York: Hyperion, 2007.
The Eden Express by Mark Vonnegut. New York: Praeger, 1975.
The "First Person Account" Special Features in the quarterly journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, www.schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org.
Making It Crazy by Sue Estroff. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1985.
Me, Myself, and Them by Kurt Snyder with Raquel E. Gur, M.D., Ph.D., and Linda Wasmer Andrews. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Nightmare: A Schizophrenia Narrative by Wendell Williamson. Durham NC: Mental Health Communication Network, 2001.
Our Voices, ed. by C. Corr, M. Dunne, M. Kapil, P. Miller, C. Moon. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, Inc. 2008.
The Quiet Room: A Journey out of the Torment of Madness by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett. New York: Warner Books, 1994.
The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve Lopez. New York: Penguin Group, 2008.
The Voices of Robby Wilde by Elizabeth Kytle. Washington, DC: Seven Locks Press, 1987.
Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness by Pete Earley. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2006.
The Four of Us by E. Swados. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991.
Imagining Robert by Jay Neugeboren. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1997.
Mad House: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings by Simon Clea. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
My Sister's Keeper by M. Moorman. New York: Norton, 1992.
"People Say I'm Crazy," 84 minutes, 2004. Palo Alto Pictures, www.peoplesayimcrazy.org.
"Uncertain Journey: Families Coping with Serious Mental Illness," 45 minutes, 1995. Duke University School of Medicine, Division of Audiovisual Education.
"Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia," 57 minutes, 2010. MyDOC Productions, www.unlisedfilm.com.
"When Medicine Got It Wrong," 53 minutes, 2009. Documentary Educational Materials, (617) 926-0491.
In the 1950s, some therapists working with families thought that schizophrenia was caused by bad parenting, and coined the term "schizophrenogenic," (causing schizophrenia), which was usually applied to mothers. While fun to say, this term was neither helpful nor accurate, putting unwarranted blame on families already struggling to come to terms with the burdens of a chronic illness.
It is true that high-stress family situations may exacerbate the illness when families fail to recognize problems, to initiate early treatment, or to provide good communication, problem-solving, boundaries, and support; but these things do not cause schizophrenia.
Founded in January 2009, the Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health is part of the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Addressing quality of care and workforce development issues in North Carolina's mental health system, the Center and its clinical programs are supported by a three-year grant from The Duke Endowment, as well as Cross Area Services Program (CASP)
funds. The program operates in conjunction with multiple university, state, and community-based partners.
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