Books by R. Walter Heinrichs
Books
The new book
The Illness of Thoughts
Solving the Puzzle of Schizophrenia
What happens in the mind to make people think they have superpowers or are controlled by devices implanted in their heads and must obey the voices they generate?
What scrambles speech into a salad of words no one can understand and sucks the meaning out of life?
Why is the madness we now call schizophrenia so hard to find in history, in the brain, in our genes and in the lives of young people before it erupts?
About the book
This book is the story of scientific attempts to find answers. It is written for general readers with an interest in the most severe form of mental illness. The interest may be because it has affected someone they know and love or because of curiosity about its nature and causes.
The Illness of Thoughts weaves personal accounts like those of Michelle into the science. At the age of 18, she became convinced that a bird in the sky transmitted thoughts to her while more messages were beaming in from television programs. Michelle felt the world was going to end soon and that she had a pivotal role to play in its demise.
The book navigates through the mystery of where, when, and why this condition first appeared and whether it has proliferated. The journey charts the successes and failures in measuring psychotic thinking with cognitive tests. It follows the search for answers in brain chemistry spurred by the discovery of medicines that reduce symptoms for many but not all people with the diagnosis. The book goes on to examine what genes do and do not explain. And it considers the early life warnings of gathering psychosis and how environments push people over the edge or pull them back.
A powerful tool is described in the final chapter — a tool being fashioned at the frontier of neuroscience. This tool will "read" minds and trace psychotic thoughts into their microscopic pathways in the brain. But the tool may endanger privacy and freedom even as it promises breakthroughs in understanding. The Illness of Thoughts is the story of schizophrenia, its past, present and possible future.
Why read it
What this book offers
Complex ideas made understandable and engaging
Dispels myths, corrects untruths and gives readers knowledge about the most severe and misunderstood mental illness.
Science woven with case studies and personal accounts
Gives insight into the experience of psychosis and encourages understanding and empathy for people with the disorder.
Neurological mind reading, described for the first time
Presents a significant new interpretation of the subject as a tool to discover the cause of psychosis in the brain.
Audience
Who is this book for?
General readers with a connection to or interest in schizophrenia, serious mental illness and/or popular science and the brain. Readers will learn what is fact, what is fiction and where the answer may lie to solve the most severe and puzzling form of mental illness.
Contents
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
The Most Human Illness
Madness in Time and Place
Capturing Thought
The Chemical Brain
The Genetic Lottery
Prospecting for Psychosis
The Future of Schizophrenia
Index
Coming early 2027
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About the author: Read Walter's story
2001 · Oxford University Press
In Search of Madness
Schizophrenia and Neuroscience
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About the book
Over the last two decades, scientific articles on schizophrenia have doubled in number, and prophecies of breakthrough have appeared and receded. The result is a scattered and confusing mass of evidence that is difficult to evaluate. How much progress has really been made? Are the neurological causes of madness truly in sight?
This book evaluates the progress of schizophrenia science by summarizing what is known about how patients with the illness differ from healthy people. The tools of meta-analysis are first explained and then employed to make the strength and consistency of these differences explicit. Beginning with the study of symptoms, then moving through the search for objective disease markers, findings on the cognitive functions, structure, physiology, chemistry, and development of the brain, this book is a journey into the enigma of madness and its science.
What emerges is an illness that reveals itself most strongly in thought processes, not biology. As evidence actually becomes weaker and harder to reproduce as research moves from mind to molecule, the harvest of dazzling research techniques turns out to be modest or inconsistent. Schizophrenia is an anomaly at the frontier of mind and brain, but In Search of Madness points the way to its solution.
Praise
What reviewers said
“This book by Heinrichs is one of the most scholarly treatises by a single author that I have read in the past decade.”
Henry A. Nasrallah, M.D. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
“Brilliant and a major contribution to the field…”
Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D. University of Virginia
“In Search of Madness provides an unparalleled examination of the neuroscientific evidence on schizophrenia.”
Frank Laroi, Ph.D. Psychological Medicine
“…this volume opens the readers’ eyes…a creative departure from the standard theoretical overview on schizophrenia.”
Elaine F. Walker, Ph.D. Contemporary Psychology
“…I enthusiastically recommend In Search of Madness to schizophrenia researchers…”
E. Fuller Torrey, M.D. Psychiatric Services
“This work is an excellent illustration of the use of meta-analytic techniques… Individuals seeking neuroscientific explanations for schizophrenia must read it.”
CHOICE
“I am a great fan of your book ‘In search of madness.’”
Stephan Heckers, M.D. Archives of General Psychiatry
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Contents
Table of contents
Illness and Evidence
The Science of Schizophrenia · Rules of Evidence · Conclusion
The Nature of Symptoms
Psychiatric Pioneers · Symptoms and Diagnosis · The Mind of Madness · The Delusional World · Counterfeit Experience · Crazy Thoughts · General Summary and Conclusions
The Mark of Madness
Traits and States · Specificity · Marking Genes · Conclusions
Executive Incompetence
The Search for the Schizophrenic Lesion · The Frontal Brain and Its Mind · Schizophrenia and the Frontal Mind · Pictures of the Brain · The Frontal-Executive Brain and Its Contribution to Schizophrenia
The Biology of Meaning
The Temporal Lobe and Its Semantic Functions · Schizophrenia and the Semantic Brain · Neurobiology of the Temporal Lobe in Schizophrenia · The Temporal-Semantic Brain and Its Contribution to Schizophrenia
Neurochemical Tempest
Modulator of Mind and Movement · Chemical of Sleep and Moods · The Brain’s Workhorse · General Summary and Conclusions
The Strangeness of Children
Essentials of Genetics and Early Neurodevelopment · Neurodevelopmental Evidence and Schizophrenia · Abnormalities of Children Vulnerable to Schizophrenia · Summary and Conclusions
Flights of Theory
Root Problems for Theories of Schizophrenia · Schizotaxia, Schizotypy, and Schizophrenia · Neurodevelopmental Diathesis-Stress Theories · Summary and Synthesis
The End of the Beginning
The Promissory Note · Multiple Disease States · The Anomaly at the Frontier of Mind and Brain · Conclusion
References · Index
Coming early 2027
Walter's new book for general readers
The Illness of Thoughts: Solving the Puzzle of Schizophrenia