Clio Medica : Perspectives in Medical Humanities, Volume 90 : Life Writing and Schizophrenia : Encounters at the Edge of Meaning

How do you write your life story when readers expect you not to make sense? How do you write a case history that makes sense when, face to face with schizophrenia, your ability to tell a diagnostic story begins to fall apart? This book examines work in several genres of life writing–autobiography, memoir, case history, autobiographical fiction–focused either on what it means to live with schizophrenia or what it means to understand and ‘treat'people who have received that diagnosis. Challenging the romanticized connection between literature and madness, Life Writing and Schizophrenia explores how writers who hear voices and experience delusions write their identities into narrative, despite popular and medical representations of schizophrenia as chaos, violence, and incoherence. The study juxtaposes these narratives to case histories by clinicians writing their encounters with those diagnosed with schizophrenia, encounters that call their own narrative authority and coherence into question. How do you write your life story when readers expect you not to make sense? How do you write a case history that makes sense when, face to face with schizophrenia, your ability to tell a diagnostic story begins to fall apart? This book examines work in several genres of life writing–autobiography, memoir, case history, autobiographical fiction–focused either on what it means to live with schizophrenia or what it means to understand and ‘treat’ people who have received that diagnosis. Challenging the romanticized connection between literature and madness, Life Writing and Schizophrenia explores how writers who hear voices and experience delusions write their identities into narrative, despite popular and medical representations of schizophrenia as chaos, violence, and incoherence. The study juxtaposes these narratives to case histories by clinicians writing their encounters with those diagnosed with schizophrenia, encounters that call their own narrative authority and coherence into question Preliminary material /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- Introduction /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- 'Time Turned Solid, Like a Wall': Four Mental Hospital Memoirs /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- 'Will They Hear and Be Convinced by my Story?' First Person Accounts from Schizophrenia Bulletin /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- 'A Striking Similarity with our Theory': Freud and Bateson Read Memoirs of Schizophrenia /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- 'The Speech Which Arranges the Dance': The Undoing of Schizophrenia in Janet Frame's Autobiography and Fiction /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- Diagnostic Narrative in the DSM-IV Casebook /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- 'That Damn Schizophrenia': Evolving Identity in Eunice Wood's Unwritten Story /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- Bibliography /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia -- Index /Editors Life Writing and Schizophrenia 'time Turned Solid, Like A Wall': Four Mental Hospital Memoirs -- 'will They Hear And Be Convinced By My Story?' First Person Accounts From Schizophrenia Bulletin -- 'a Striking Similarity With Our Theory': Freud And Bateson Read Memoirs Of Schizophrenia -- 'the Speech Which Arranges The Dance': The Undoing Of Schizophrenia In Janet Frame's Autobiography And Fiction -- Diagnostic Narrative In The Dsm-iv Casebook -- 'that Damn Schizophrenia': Evolving Identity In Eunice Wood's Unwritten Story. Mary Elene Wood. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.