Schizophrenia, now there’s a scary subject.
It was much on my mind this month after reading A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar, the tale of John Forbes Nash, a mathematics genius who succumbed to the disease for 25 years. As any moviegoer who watched the film can tell you, he beat schizophrenia and returned to sanity.
This was a feat to equal the most brilliant mathematical work Nash did while pioneering the field of games theory. Nowhere in the pantheon of mental illness is there a demon more omnipotent and tyrannical than schizophrenia. Until recently it was believed no one ever fully recovered from the malady; all were expected to dwell in a prison of disconnection, paranoia, and delusion until death. But one study has shown that about eight percent have struggled back to sanity to stay, and among them was Nash.
If schizophrenia is a puzzle, then its cure is Churchill’s “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.†Everything available has been tried from electrical and insulin shock to antipsychotic drugs and psychoanalysis. For the most part these treatments produce remissions which soon evaporate. Nash contributed a tantalizing hint that the winning medicine comes from the patient himself: “I emerged from irrational thinking,†he said in 1996, “ultimately without medicine other than the natural hormonal changes of aging.†He added that the healing process involved a growing awareness of the sterility of his delusions and an increasing capacity for rejecting delusional thought. Previously in 1995 he had written:
“Gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been the characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of effort.â€Â
Lastly, in his Nobel autobiography he wrote: “A key step was a resolution not to concern myself in politics relative to my secret world because it was ineffectual. This in turn led me to renounce anything relative to religious issues, or teaching or intending to teach. I began to study mathematical problems and to learn the computer as it existed at that time.â€Â
Politics formed one of the principal components of Nash’s delusions during his years of illness. At one time he proclaimed himself “king of Antarctica†to his astonished associates. In another episode he fled to Switzerland to renounce his American citizenship and anoint himself a “citizen of the “world.â€Â
Interestingly, this last act is common in times of crisis among Americans of the New Left, leaving open the questions of whether radical politics induces schizophrenia, or vice versa. But it does seem the more extreme the political stance the more aberrant the behavior. Also of note here is a news story I read recently of John Kerry supporters in Florida who were so distraught at presidential election results that they are now undergoing therapy. And the airwaves have vibrated with the sad tales of California Democrats who have vowed to move to Canada now that George Bush has won a second term.
Perhaps it is a bit too much to label these last two examples as schizophrenic. They're more likely just average neurotics pampering their political phobias. But do these cases get worse? We just don't know. Scientists have avoided this question and, considering Nash's fate, who can blame them? Politics seems especially hard on the technical brain.
At any rate, it is time psychologists stepped in and gave us some hard answers, even at the cost of their own nerves. It is possible that after every close-fought election, thousands of our citizens have gone whicky and started chewing the carpet--- but we never knew it.
It was much on my mind this month after reading A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar, the tale of John Forbes Nash, a mathematics genius who succumbed to the disease for 25 years. As any moviegoer who watched the film can tell you, he beat schizophrenia and returned to sanity.
This was a feat to equal the most brilliant mathematical work Nash did while pioneering the field of games theory. Nowhere in the pantheon of mental illness is there a demon more omnipotent and tyrannical than schizophrenia. Until recently it was believed no one ever fully recovered from the malady; all were expected to dwell in a prison of disconnection, paranoia, and delusion until death. But one study has shown that about eight percent have struggled back to sanity to stay, and among them was Nash.
If schizophrenia is a puzzle, then its cure is Churchill’s “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.†Everything available has been tried from electrical and insulin shock to antipsychotic drugs and psychoanalysis. For the most part these treatments produce remissions which soon evaporate. Nash contributed a tantalizing hint that the winning medicine comes from the patient himself: “I emerged from irrational thinking,†he said in 1996, “ultimately without medicine other than the natural hormonal changes of aging.†He added that the healing process involved a growing awareness of the sterility of his delusions and an increasing capacity for rejecting delusional thought. Previously in 1995 he had written:
“Gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been the characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of effort.â€Â
Lastly, in his Nobel autobiography he wrote: “A key step was a resolution not to concern myself in politics relative to my secret world because it was ineffectual. This in turn led me to renounce anything relative to religious issues, or teaching or intending to teach. I began to study mathematical problems and to learn the computer as it existed at that time.â€Â
Politics formed one of the principal components of Nash’s delusions during his years of illness. At one time he proclaimed himself “king of Antarctica†to his astonished associates. In another episode he fled to Switzerland to renounce his American citizenship and anoint himself a “citizen of the “world.â€Â
Interestingly, this last act is common in times of crisis among Americans of the New Left, leaving open the questions of whether radical politics induces schizophrenia, or vice versa. But it does seem the more extreme the political stance the more aberrant the behavior. Also of note here is a news story I read recently of John Kerry supporters in Florida who were so distraught at presidential election results that they are now undergoing therapy. And the airwaves have vibrated with the sad tales of California Democrats who have vowed to move to Canada now that George Bush has won a second term.
Perhaps it is a bit too much to label these last two examples as schizophrenic. They're more likely just average neurotics pampering their political phobias. But do these cases get worse? We just don't know. Scientists have avoided this question and, considering Nash's fate, who can blame them? Politics seems especially hard on the technical brain.
At any rate, it is time psychologists stepped in and gave us some hard answers, even at the cost of their own nerves. It is possible that after every close-fought election, thousands of our citizens have gone whicky and started chewing the carpet--- but we never knew it.
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