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Hidden Valley Road:Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

 




Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker a masterpiece of research and storytelling, the real life kind.

How did anyone survive inside this Family so wrecked by the specter of schizophrenia? I have always been fascinated by large families and what makes them tick or fall apart. Herein, the Galvins numbered 12 siblings, the mother kind of floating along somehow (she seemed delusional to me) and the father often absent due to his military or academic duties. As the children came into young adulthood, one by one, 6 of the 10 Galvin brothers are diagnosed with schizophrenia. The two youngest being female, were both spared. They suffered in their own way and often had to pick up the pieces.

If you have any interest in psychiatry or psychology, you will get into this book. It is a horror story of sorts, and I felt a bitguilty of being a drive-by spectator reading about this deeply broken family. And yet at times, in small lulls, there are times the family comes together, maybe not all of them, but most of them. They care for each other and carry on. Much therapy is needed for the caretakers as well as the mentally ill. All sorts of medications are tried, as well as theories given.

Eventually the Galvins become part of an important genetic study. Readers are educated in the history of psychiatry as related to schizophrenia, as well as the ongoing genetic research. No one has completely cracked the code of this mental illness, but several discoveries made and explained. Such honorable work is ongoing, and hopefully a day will come when schizophrenics and their families will no longer have to suffer like the Galvins. May it be so...


This post first appeared on Speed Of Light, please read the originial post: here

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Hidden Valley Road:Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

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