Schizophrenia in media 2002

The list presents a selection of articeles with schizophrenia association in media.

Exhibition by schizophrenic artist (12/02/02)

Children of the mentally ill (10/18/02)

Special issue of Newsweek on teen depression (09/30/02)
Exhibition for the general public at Karolinska Institutet about the human body (09/20/02)
Listen to Håkan Hall talk about HUBIN (09/09/02)

Campaign to open the doors (07/30/02)

Mental illness - a great mystery (06/10/02)

New movie about schizophrenia at the Cannes film festival (04/25/02)
"King Lear" from a psychiatric perspective (04/18/02)
Virtual reality game simulates both auditory and visual hallucinations (04/16/02)
Audiotapes with recorded voices help people realize what it is like to "hear voices" (04/12/02)

"Elling" - Norwegian film at its best (03/30/02)
Four Oscars to "A Beautiful Mind" (03/25/02)
Living with schizophrenia (03/24/02)
Literature about schizophrenia from New Zealand (03/18/02)
Court case in the US may lead to mental health reforms (03/15/02)
The real John Nash (03/13/02)
When your child hears voices you don't hear (03/13/02)
A daughter's story about her mother's mental illness (03/13/02)
Music therapy for the mentally ill (03/12/02)
Can antipsychotic drugs hinder recovery? (03/10/02)

Factors that influence recovery from mental illness (02/18/02)
Young people poorly informed about mental illness (02/08/02)
Is it right to force the mentally ill to get treatment? (02/04/02)

Earlier incident involving mental illness at American university attracts attention (01/29/02)
Movie on American television channel CBS about mental illness (01/22/02)
Childhood abuse and schizophrenia (01/18/02)
A flower for the mentally ill (01/16/02)
The importance of taking your medication (01/16/02)
Movie creates new empathy for the mentally ill (01/13/02)

Exhibition by schizophrenic artist (12/02/02)
Beauford Delaney (1901-1979) was a black American artist known for his groundbreaking abstractions and remarkably sensitive portraits. His paintings are now at display at an exhibition at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. During his lifetime, Delaney fought a battle with alcoholism and emotional and physical problems. He was repeatedly hospitalized for schizophrenia. The exhibition "The Color Yellow" shows Delaney's preoccupation with the color yellow, which experts believe reflects the artist's determination to light up the dark, loveless and inhumane world he experiences.
Source: The Washington Times, November 30, 2002
Read more in article at washtimes.com
Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture homepage

Children of the mentally ill (10/18/02)
In the past week, Swedish Newspaper Dagens Nyheter has published an article series about the difficulties of being the child of a parent that suffer from a mental illness. All articles are available online (in Swedish):
Part 1: Ensam med ett jättestort ansvar (October 13)
Part 2: "Jag var utestängd från mammas värld" (October 14)
Part 3: Oron och skammen gör att barnen tiger (October 17)
Part 4: Svårt för barn att få hjälp (October 18)
Source: Dagens Nyheter, October 14-18, 2002
Dagens Nyheter's homepage

Special issue of Newsweek on teen depression (09/30/02)
An estimated 3 million kids in the United States suffer from depression. A special issue of Newsweek discusses the alarming increase in the number of young people who suffer from depression, and tells the story about a few of the teenagers that are afflicted.
Source: Newsweek, October 7, 2002
Read more on newsweek.com

Exhibition for the general public at Karolinska Institutet about the human body (09/20/02)
Do you live in or plan to visit the Stockholm area and want to find out more about the brain and the human body? Then you have a chance to do so during Karolinska Institutet's popular science days September 20-22. At this interactive exhibition you can listen to interesting seminars about current research, test your senses, and learn more about how your body functions.
Source: Karolinska Institutet, 2002
Read more on Karolinska Institutet's homepage

Listen to Håkan Hall talk about HUBIN (09/09/02)
A while ago, HUBIN's Håkan Hall was interviewed by Pippi Engstedt at the Karolinska Hospital's own radios station about schizophrenia and the research database project HUBIN. The recording can be downloaded from the Karolinska Hospital's website.
Source: Karolinska Hospital radio station
Download the interview
VIP article about Håkan Hall (published in August 2002)

Campaign to open the doors (07/30/02)
In 1996, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) initiated an International Programme to Fight the Stigma and Discrimination because of Schizophrenia.
The WPA programme is designed to:
- Increase the awareness and knowledge of the nature of schizophrenia and the treatment options that exist
- Improve public attitudes about those who have or have had schizophrenia and their families
- Request action to eliminate discrimination and prejudice.
Source: openthedoors.com, 2002
Read more on openthedoors.com

Mental illness - a great mystery (06/10/02)
Few diseases are surrounded by so much mystery like the mental illnesses. Janice Gaston at the Winston-Salem Journal has written an article about the many myths and stories that for thousands of years have dealt with mental illness, and the in many cases horrifying methods that have been used in an attempt to treat these diseases.
Source: Winston-Salem Journal, Monday, June 3, 2002
Read the article on journalnow.com

New movie about schizophrenia at the Cannes film festival (04/25/02)
At the 2002 Cannes film festival, Canadian director David Cronenberg, who headed the festival in 1999, is back with "Spider," a psychological thriller about acute schizophrenia. In the movie - starring Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson and Lynn Redgrave - Fiennes plays a man living in London's East End, who is trying to piece his life back together after his release from a mental institution.
Source: upcomingmovies.com and the Cannes film festival homepage
Movie info on upcomingmovies.com
Cannes festival official website

"King Lear" from a psychiatric perspective (04/18/02)
A researcher at John Hopkin's hospital in Baltimore, Maryland now brings Shakespear's 500 year old play "King Lear" into focus. The researcher concludes that Lear was probably suffering from "bipolar I disorder" - the most severe form of manic-depression - in which periods of depression are interspersed with periods of mania. Lear is in a manic state from the first scene of the first act, and although he is in perfect physical condition, Lear is subject to a progressive lack of control. The researcher and author of the paper in Southern Medical Journal thinks research into depictions of mental health in Shakespearean text can be extremely rewarding for both readers and professional psychiatrists.
Source: Southern Medical Journal 2002;95:343-352, and Yahoo- Reuters, Wednesday, April 17, 2002
Read more in article on Yahoo! - Reuters

Virtual reality game simulates both auditory and visual hallucinations (04/16/02)
A couple of days ago, we reorted about a workshop where the participants by listening to recorded audiotapes (see below) will be given a chance to get a feeling fo how it is to "hear voices". Another article now tells about a another type of simulation. In this, the participant is put in the shoes of someone who has lost the medication they use to control their schizophrenia and hasn't taken it for two weeks. The person then walks through a busy grocery store, on his way to the store's pharmacy to get a refill for his prescription. With the help of a virtual reality game, the participant experiences both auditory and visual hallucinations in the store and pharmacy.
Source: Tribune Chronicle, Friday, April 12, 2002
Read more in article on tribune-chronicle.com

Audiotapes with recorded voices help people realize what it is like to "hear voices" (04/12/02)
At an upcoming workshop in Massachusetts, family members and friends of mentally ill people who "hear voices" will have an opportunity to get a feeling for what it is like to have auditory hallucinations. The workshop will let participants to listen to audiotapes with recorded voices while trying to perform typical daily tasks. The tasks may include reading and responding to questions about an article, completing puzzles or naming things the last five presidents. Afterward, participants discuss the experience.Earlier workshops like this have made people realize how difficult it is to carry out daily tasks while hearing voices, which hopefully leads to more empathy for those who suffer from schizophrenia.
Source: Washington Post, Monday, April 8, 2002
Read article on washingtonpost.com

"Elling" - Norwegian film at its best (03/30/02)
Read more at Hubin's media tips section

Four Oscars to "A Beautiful Mind" (03/25/02)
The movie "A Beautiful Mind" - about the paranoid schizophrenic genius and mathematician John Nash, who after decades of illness beat his disease, and then in 1994 won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences - had great success at Sunday night's Oscar awards in Hollywood. Like "Lord of the Rings", "A Beautiful Mind" got four statuettes. Akiva Goldsman got the prize for best original script, Jennifer Connelly won for best supporting actress, and Ron Howard was awarded the award for best director. Finally, "A Beautiful Mind" was also voted best picture.
Source: oscar.com, Monday, March 25, 2002
Oscar awards homepage

Living with schizophrenia (03/24/02)
Debra Lunceford-Mikolajczyk, Mark Hidalgo, and Rebecca Lewis are three of many millions of Americans who live with schizophrenia. From the outside, there may be now trace of it, but inside, they have all suffered from the diseases for some 20 years now.
Source: usnews.com, Monday, March 25, 2002
Read the article on usnews.com

Literature about schizophrenia from New Zealand (03/18/02)
In an article in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet from March 17, Steve Sem-Sandberg writes about a biography from New Zeeland. The book, written by Michael King, is about the author Janet Frame, and is to a large parte based on Frames's own aoutobiography from 1989, "An Angel by My Table", which was also translated into movie format by Jane Campion. Frame, who was born in 1926, was during her childhood very shy, had several traumatic experiences, and was later diagnosed as schizophrenic. She did however always deny that she ever suffered from the disease, and instead meant that her mental condition was due to factors like malpractice, wrong diagnosis, lack of insight regarding patients, and prejudices.
Source: Svenska Dagbladet, Sunday, March 17, 2002
Read the article in Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish Only)
Literature tips from HUBIN

Court case in the US may lead to mental health reforms (03/15/02)
A court case in the US, where a woman, Andrea Yates, has been convicted with murder after drowning her five children, may lead to reforms. Before the murders, Yates had been severely depressed for long periods, and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Experts now mean and hope the conviction will help improve understanding of mental illness and how it can best be treated.
Source: Yahoo! - AP, Thursday, March 14, 2002
Read more in article on Yahoo! - AP

The real John Nash (03/13/02)
Since its premiere a while ago in the US and a number of other countries, "A Beatiuful Mind" has been seen by a large number of moviegoers, many of which loved the movie. The film, however, is a fictionalized version of the book upon which it is based, and people now want to know the truth about the real Nash. Sylvia Nasar, who wrote the book, has written an article for MSNBC about Nash, about who he really was and is, and what he is doing today.
Source: MSNBC, Monday, March 11, 2002
Read the article on the MSNBC website

When your child hears voices you don't hear (03/13/02)
Hallucinations is a common symptom in diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar diorder. In two separate stories, parents talk about the pain of knowing that your child is suffering and hears voices nobody else hears.
Source: MSNBC and Beaver County Times, Monday, March 11, 2002
Read article on the MSNBC website
Read article in Beaver County Times

A daughter's story about her mother's mental illness (03/13/02)
Already as a child, Gretel C. Kovach understood that there was something "weird" with her mother. In an article on MSNBC's website, she describes the pain of growing up with a paranoid schizophrenic patient.
Source: MSNBC, Wednesday, March 6, 2002
Read the article on the MSNBC website

Music therapy for the mentally ill (03/12/02)
Mick Lawson, a professional musician who earlier has played alongside David Bowie, has set up a unique course to help people overcome mental health problems. The participants in his class, which all have experienced various serious problems, including nervous breakdowns and schizophrenia, get to spend 12 weeks with Lawson, composing songs and recording a CD at the studio in his home. Lawson says: "Music is the greatest therapy there is. I get them to talk about their problems and get ideas going. We try to look at things in a humorous way, like going for an interview for a job you know you're not going to get. "Everyone plays their part and its so satisfying when it starts coming together."
Source: USA Today, Wednesday, March 4, 2002
Read more in article on Birmingham Post online

Can antipsychotic drugs hinder recovery? (03/10/02)
The movie "A Beautiful Mind", about the genius and mathematician John Nash and his struggle against schizophrenia, has received a lot of attention and raises a number of important questions. One of these are, do the medications we use to treat schizophrenia promote long-term recovery - or hinder it? This issue was discussed recently in an article from USA Today. According to the book by Sylvia Nasar, upon which the movie is loosely based, Nash stopped taking mediactions in 1970, and then slowly recovered over the following two decades. The article also points out that investigations by WHO (World Health Organization) have shown that the schizophrenia outcomes are much worse in developed countries like the US and most Western European countries than in poor countries like India and Nigeria, where antipsychotic medications are used much less frequently.
Source: USA Today, Sunday, March 3, 2002
Read the article in USA Today

Factors that influence recovery from mental illness (02/18/02)
Recovery from mental illness can be a lengthy process and may take many, many years. Although, under the right circumstances, recovery is still possible for a substantial fraction of patients who seek treatment. This is also the message in the movie "A Beautiful Mind". An article in The Washington Post discusses the factors that foster recovery. Age and onset, medication, avoiding illegal drugs and alcohol abuse, supportive relationships, and persistence are a few of them.
Source: The Washington Post online, Tuesday, February 12, 2002
Read the article in The Washington Post

Young people poorly informed about mental illness (02/08/02)
The knowledge about mental illnessis often very poor among students. At the same time, this is the age when schizophrenia and other mental illnesses usually strikes. In the US, NAMI is now making an attempt to inform young people about mental illness. A column on Newsday.com discusses this issue, and brings up the importance of making people understand that mental illnesses are very common, but there is help to get, and most importantly, nobody should have to be ashamed of suffering from one.
Source: Newsday.com, Tuesday, February 5, 2002
Read the column on Newsday.com

Is it right to force the mentally ill to get treatment? (02/04/02)
When someone has a mental illness and doesn't acknowledge it, a difficult question arises: Should someone else force that person to get treatment? This issue is discussed in an article in The Macon Telegraph, where a particular case is brought up, in which the relatives of a mentally ill adult man speak out about how to handle their close relative's illness.
Source: The Macon Telegraph, Wednesday, January 30, 2002
Read the article in The Macon Telegraph

Earlier incident involving mental illness at American university attracts attention (01/29/02)
An incident two years ago at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MT, where a female student set her self on fire, ended up with 60 percent burns over her body, and then died, caused a lot of fury among the victim's relatives and people at the university. The student suffered from mental problems and had several times attempted suicide. She was however seeing a psychiatrist, and the day before the fatal accident, her parents had been to visit her. Two years later, the parents are now planning to sue the university's administrators, therapists, and police for failing to prevent their daughter's suicide.
Source: USA TODAY, Friday, January 25, 2002
Read more on Yahoo! - USA TODAY

Movie on American television channel CBS about mental illness (01/22/02)
On January 27, American television channel shows a movie called "My Sister's Keeper". The film is based on a true story, and revolves around two sisters' relationship and attempts of self-discovery. Kathy Bates plays a mentally ill woman, and Lynn Redgrave her mother, who tries to cope as best she can in the days before therapy and medications were common. Elizabeth Perkins plays Bates' younger sister. For those of you who have access to CBS, try to catch this movie on January 27.
Source: CBS.com
Read more on CBS.com

Childhood abuse and schizophrenia (01/18/02)
New research suggests that there may be a link between childhood abuse and development of schizophrenia later in life. The researcher responsible for this investigation, Dr John Read, from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, is interviewed by BBC Health News.
Support and fellowship organizations warn against jumping to conclusions. Paul Corry (the National Schizophrenia Fellowship) and Amanda Hall (the mental health charity SANE) points out that the issue is complex and more research is needed.
Source: BBC Health news, Monday, January 14, 2002
Read the article at BBC Health news

A flower for the mentally ill (01/16/02)
The support organization National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Manatee County in Florida is just preparing for one of the big events of the year. Every year, volunteers are recruited to make tissue paper flowers, which are then sold to the public in order to collect money for help to the mentally ill. This makes it possible for the alliance to help the ones in need with clothes, living costs, medical costs and other expenses. An idea for other support groups to think about perhaps?
Source: Bradenton Herald online, January 15, 2002
Read more about the flower project in article on Bradenton Herald online

The importance of taking your medication (01/16/02)
Chip Correll was 23 and newly graduated from the University of South Florida when he became convinced people were trying to kill him. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Today, after seven years of struggle, he lives independently, lobbies for mental health legislation and talks about his illness to encourage other sufferers and educate the public. Every day, Corell takes 14 tablets, and he never skips a dose. The importance of sticking to the medications is just one of the things he stresses in his self-published book, which was released last year. An article in the Florida newspaper St Petersburg Times tells the story about Chip, and discusses the importance for the mentally ill to taking their prescribed medications.
Source: St Petersburg Times online, January 15, 2002
Read the article on St Petersburg Times online
Literature tips from Hubin

Movie may enhance people's empathy for the mentally ill (01/13/02)
The movie "A beautiful mind" - which premiered recently in the theatres, and portraits schizophrenic genious and Nobel Prize winner John Nash's life (see previous comment on Hubin's website) - has received a lot of attention. In a comment in MSNBC Newsweek, George F. Will discusses what impact the movie will have on the audience, and means it will likely enhance people's empathy for the mentally ill.
Source: MSNBC Newsweek, January 14 issue, 2002
Read the article on Newsweek online

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