General Adult Psychiatry
updated 2002/08/19
The secrets of schizophrenia were revealed in 1966 when James Chapman published the results of his work with 40 people who were still able to explain what they were experiencing. Dr. Chapman took the radical approach of actually listening to these people. More, he worked out ways to make it easier for severely disabled people to describe what they perceived.
In this paper Dr. Chapman summarizes what he has found in a number of areas, laying out how schizophrenics perceive the world, how they are disabled, and how they must find work-arounds to express themselves and to minimize their discomfort.
This paper will tell you why schizophrenics behave the way they do; it will tell you why certain environments—busy cities, for example—are hard on people with schizophrenia; and it will tell you how clinicians can make the lives of schizophrenic patients easier.
N.B.—This paper is posted with the kind permission of the British Journal of Psychiatry, who responded
to my request in days(!).
Edward S. Hume, M.D., J.D.
E-mail: ehume at this domain