[costello]

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, the YA classic written by Joanne Greenberg based on the years she spent committed to a psychiatric ward as a schizophrenic teenager. The impact I Never Promised You a Rose Garden made upon its release in 1964 was fairly quiet. No excerpts were placed in periodicals; reviews, though complimentary, were printed on back pages. The book sold slowly until around 1969, when high schools and colleges began incorporating it into curricula.

Librarians and high school teachers and parents were all justifiably nervous that American youth were willfully courting madness as a means of rebellion. Charismatic figures like R.D. Laing and Timothy Leary preached a version of lunacy-as-transcendence, and educators and parents wanted to offer vulnerable young students a more realistic tale of insanity—one that took place in a locked ward rather than a field of flowers. Sales of the books shot up. It became a particular kind of classic, embraced not primarily for its prose, but for putting its finger on the pulse of a certain set of collective anxieties. Greenberg, who, by the mid-’60s was living symptom-free in Colorado, watched her sales rise. This year it sold nearly six million copies.




But not long after I Never Promised You a Rose Garden became canonical, it also became a lightning rod, and it is the contours of that controversy that make the novel still relevant today. Greenberg claimed full recovery, and many psychiatric professionals worried that this would inspire a false and dangerous hope. Schizophrenics, they said, simply cannot recover. German psychiatrist Emil Kraeplin, who coined the early version of the diagnosis “dementia praecox,” described the disease as “terminal.” The introduction of Thorazine in the 1950s offered some reprieve from the symptoms, but the best a schizophrenic could hope for was what Swiss psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler called “recovery with defect.” Doctors wrote articles that evaluated the novel as if it were a case history and re-diagnosed her autobiographical protagonist as a hysteric. In The New York Times an article headline read: “Schizophrenia in Popular Books: A Study Finds Too Much Hope.” One psychiatrist even repeatedly called Greenberg at her home to try to force her to admit she had been misdiagnosed.

Continued here.

[junkDNA]

that makes me mad. i think recovery is possible for anyone. its the medical model that keeps people from recovering. if hospitals, doctors, and nurses had a different mindset about recovery then things would change. i am lucky to be in a private facility that focuses on whole recovery within 7 domains of life. http://cooperriis.org/difference/index.html
http://cooperriis.org/difference/exp...ooperriis.html http://cooperriis.org/programs/index.html

i read this before i came here http://cooperriis.org/forms/recoverypgm.pdf

[costello]

Originally Posted by junkDNA

that makes me mad. i think recovery is possible for anyone. its the medical model that keeps people from recovering. if hospitals, doctors, and nurses had a different mindset about recovery then things would change. i am lucky to be in a private facility that focuses on whole recovery within 7 domains of life. The Relationship-Centered Care of CooperRiis Healing Community
http://cooperriis.org/difference/exp...ooperriis.html The CooperRiis Recovery Philosophy

i read this before i came here http://cooperriis.org/forms/recoverypgm.pdf

Someone recommended this program for my son.

[junkDNA]

Originally Posted by costello

Someone recommended this program for my son.

wow, really? its an excellent program. but the one (major) downside is they are private and insurance wont pay for it. it is extremely expensive, but they do offer reduced rate scholarships based on finances and willingness to work the program. thats how i am able to be here. the only reason i got to come here is my old pdoc. he paid for the first 2 months (because u have to pay full price the first two months, then u can apply for a scholarship). i didnt know that until like 2 years after i came to CR. but they have a huge endowment fund to be able to give the reduced rates.

[Atypical_Disaster]

This pisses me the **** off.

[costello]

Originally Posted by junkDNA

wow, really? its an excellent program. but the one (major) downside is they are private and insurance wont pay for it. it is extremely expensive, but they do offer reduced rate scholarships based on finances and willingness to work the program. thats how i am able to be here. the only reason i got to come here is my old pdoc. he paid for the first 2 months (because u have to pay full price the first two months, then u can apply for a scholarship). i didnt know that until like 2 years after i came to CR. but they have a huge endowment fund to be able to give the reduced rates.

Yes, I looked into it at the time. I decided I couldn't afford it. At the time my son was really, really psychotic too. He's so much better now.

[Sometimes psychotic]

Yeah I always wonder about this kind of hindsight thing----its totally revisionist history. What it means to me is if your pdoc labels you with sz its quite possibly inaccurate and you may in fact recover regardless of what is initially stated even assuming a recovery rate of zero rather than the modern 25%.

I find it amusing that my current pdoc initially wanted to say I just had a brief psychotic disorder despite exceeding the time limits for that dx mostly because of the fact that I had a full recovery----the reality is these supposed conditions have no scientific basis and even if you give two pdocs the same patient there is only a 50% chance they'll come up with the same dx.

To me they should not be worried about what is sz or not but why on earth do some people recover from psychosis while others deal with it for a lifetime. Why does brief psychotic disorder even exist...how do people come out of that? Why do people with bipolar go in and out of psychosis only during mood episodes....why don't they hear voices all the time? I think its like seeing a gray horse and arguing whether its actually black or white instead of wondering why there is a horse there at all.

Thank u Costello for that article. Very interesting...I read that book yrs ago, I need to dig it out of my closet and read it again.

Idk, the docs have said meds for life for me. But I can't help but wonder if I were to lose weight, eat healthier, exercise daily, take supplements, have coping skills readily available, that maybe I can get off at least some of these meds. It sucks bc some of the meds make me fatigued. It's complicated.

I think there's more to recovery than just meds, ya know?

[Atypical_Disaster]

Originally Posted by Sometimes psychotic

Yeah I always wonder about this kind of hindsight thing----its totally revisionist history. What it means to me is if your pdoc labels you with sz its quite possibly inaccurate and you may in fact recover regardless of what is initially stated even assuming a recovery rate of zero rather than the modern 25%.

I find it amusing that my current pdoc initially wanted to say I just had a brief psychotic disorder despite exceeding the time limits for that dx mostly because of the fact that I had a full recovery----the reality is these supposed conditions have no scientific basis and even if you give two pdocs the same patient there is only a 50% chance they'll come up with the same dx.

To me they should not be worried about what is sz or not but why on earth do some people recover from psychosis while others deal with it for a lifetime. Why does brief psychotic disorder even exist...how do people come out of that? Why do people with bipolar go in and out of psychosis only during mood episodes....why don't they hear voices all the time? I think its like seeing a gray horse and arguing whether its actually black or white instead of wondering why there is a horse there at all.

Yeah the general consensus seems to be that if you recover you never had schizophrenia in the first place. Which I think is total BS.

[Sometimes psychotic]

For anyone who doesn't know you can get the mackler film that follows up and interviews joanne greenburg here---the film is about two different people with a full recovery from previously diagnosed sz...

[costello]

Originally Posted by sunshine1995

I think there's more to recovery than just meds, ya know?

Yes, meds are one tools among many.

My son's pdoc has been lowering his dosage to see if he can get off the meds altogether. Currently he's taking 3/8 of the 2.5 mg pill. He told me he wants to stop lowering it when he gets to 1/4 of the 2.5 mg pill. He says it's getting harder and harder for him to sleep on the lower dose, so he'd like to stay on a very low dose just to help him sleep.