Ruminations on Madness

A brief timeout from my usual blogging for this announcement. Check out the new addition to my blog roll. In the course of researching the issues raised by Robert Whitaker's "Anatomy of an Epidemic," I came across Ruminations on Madness, by "N." N is a PhD candidate who identifies herself as having schizophrenia. Why not just say "PhD candidate who has schizophrenia"? Apparently, things are not so simple. In one post, she brings up a set of "binaries," one of them being: "If a person is working on a PhD, then that person cannot possibly have schizophrenia or that it is somehow not serious" vs "If a person has schizophrenia then that person should not be working on a PhD."

Interesting. A lot of crazy stuff gets said about bipolars (that's me), but this isn't one of them.

N shares many of the same reservations I have about Whitaker, namely that he raises important issues but that he is prone to misrepresenting scientific studies to make a point. She would have been entirely justified in discrediting Whitaker entirely, but instead simply holds him accountable. How refreshing.

N applies her same highly nuanced sensibility to breaking down a whole range of complex issues - scientific, social, philosophical. In addition, she has just started a spin-off blog, Schizophrenia Research.

Quality bloggers have a tendency to burn out before their blog acquires the necessary traction, and I would hate to see this happen to N. You might want to pay her a visit and drop an encouraging note.