Honoree Fleming, my dear wife and friend of thirty-eight years, all credit for this book begins with you. You set aside your years of quiet grief, and your natural reserve, and your aversion to revisiting the horrors that shattered our family’s tranquility and our children’s promise, and you established yourself as my ally and partner through the long months of researching and writing this. Infallible source on matters of science, tireless editor of my own fallible memory, uncompromising copy-reader, and stubborn adversary when the need arose, you have left the glowing imprint of your loving soul on every page. What a woman you are. What a presence.
Dean, our gallant lion: Thank you for so bravely giving me permission to open up the most harrowing, soul-threatening events in your tumultuous young life. You have made it possible for me to demonstrate that the mentally ill among us, even people in psychosis, remain fully, intensely human, with prospects for significant healing.
Jim Hornfischer, “Agent Jim,” you understood the potential social value of this book instantly, and you represented it with great conviction, as you have all the projects on which we have been partners. You also saw the necessity of including Dean’s and Kevin’s stories, though I had decided against including them in my original proposal. You placed the book with a superlative publisher. And you were a tirelessly committed reader of drafts once the writing began.
Michelle Howry, my editor at Hachette, you came late to this project through no fault of your own, and you shepherded it to consummation with the skill, insights, and conviction of one who had been present at the creation.
David Groff, poet, teacher, and enabling friend of writers, you filled an editorial vacuum for several weeks before Michelle Howry was able to take up her duties. You read and thought brilliantly about every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence, every word, and you resolved many urgent questions of structure and coherence with serene confidence and great prowess. You made me a better writer than I had been before.
Maureen May, genetic counselor at the Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh, and my steadfast researcher, you provided reams of reliable data from the most arcane realms of neuroscience and neuropsychiatry.
Raj Narendran, Maureen’s husband, you were among the coterie of clinical and research psychiatrists who helped me sustain the illusion that I know more than I do. Any damage to that illusion is exclusively my fault.
Jeffrey Schaler, psychologist and friend of Thomas Szasz, you opened yourself to my questions about him, though you understood that my interpretations might not be entirely favorable.
I am also in debt to generous assistance from the following people:
Ruth Grant, for lending her extensive neuromedical expertise to my exploration of brain-science issues;
Joe Mark, academic dean emeritus of Castleton College, for awakening me to the career of Thomas Szasz;
Lawrence S. Kegeles, associate professor of psychiatry and radiology at Columbia University, for sharing his research on the effects of cannabis use upon those afflicted with schizophrenia and for his critical readings of my sections covering the nature and duration of the prodrome and the nature of schizophrenia;
Vermont psychiatrist John Edwards for sharing his insights into schizophrenia and into the source of the fears and anxieties that cause people to turn away from the insane.