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Unfortunately, an up-to-date, comprehensive book on the subject does not exist. This is mostly attributable to rapid changes within the field and is usual for any new medical approach. But I think you would find these two books interesting:

How to Live with Schizophrenia, by Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond (University Books, New Hyde Park, N. Y., 1966), may be hard to find but is well worth the effort. It is an excellent introduction to the field even though some of the technical information is out of date. The therapy available today has become considerably more sophisticated and individualized than the simple niacin and vitamin C regimen it describes.

The Schizophrenias, Yours and Mine, by Carl C. Pfieffer (Pyramid Books, New York, 1970) contains some of the more recent work and is also very helpful.

There are a number of organizations that may be helpful. There are chapters of the American Schizophrenia Association in many states. The Huxley Institute, 1114 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10021, is an excellent source of information. Many of its pamphlets and reprints are quite good. The Institute will also be able to tell you what organizations are available in your area.

More and more doctors and clinics are using the orthomolecular approach, but they are still, especially the good ones, few and far between. Most of them are overworked and are booked solid for months in advance. At the moment, finding good orthomolecular treatment is a matter of patience, luck, and hard work. I hope that this will change soon.

Orthomolecular therapy is considered controversial by many doctors, but you have nothing to lose and possibly a great deal to gain by trying it. Many schizophrenics and many doctors have found vitamins highly effective, and the worst that critics have been able to say is that they don’t work. They don’t cost much, which means the worst you could do is waste a little money. The vitamins used are all water-soluble substances that your body is well accustomed to. The dangers are very limited, as you will simply piss away anything you don’t need.

There are several problems with the vitamin approach, the principal ones being that it doesn’t work for every schizophrenic, and that with many of those it does work for the results are long in coming. I responded positively in a matter of weeks, and so do many others, but six months to a year for positive results is not uncommon. Many doctors involved with vitamin therapy freely admit that their treatment is far from what they wish it were, but it happens to be the best thing going at this point. Much more research is needed before we have any fast, easy answers to schizophrenia. Doctors using vitamin therapy don’t do so to the exclusion of other approaches. They are generally experts in drugs and other therapies and don’t hesitate to use them when called for.

While I very likely owe my life to Thorazine, I doubt if I will ever develop much affection for it or similar tranquilizers. They act very quickly and are invaluable in many situations, but have numerous unpleasant side effects. I don’t see them as an attractive long-term solution but more as a way to buy time for the vitamin, dietary, and other less coercive approaches. The heavy drugs can make your illness somewhat less troublesome to yourself and a lot less troublesome to others, but what I like so much about the vitamin approach is its utter lack of coerciveness. If your body doesn’t feel the need for a vitamin, it simply gets rid of it. Things aren’t so simple with substances like Thorazine, which it’s unaccustomed to. There is no way the vitamins can be an infringement on your individuality. They simply make sure your body gets whatever raw materials it wants.

Suicide is a very real danger. It may sometimes seem like a rational choice. I tried to kill myself a number of times, but was luckily so screwed up I couldn’t do a decent job of it. I had heard that schizophrenia was incurable, which is most definitely untrue. I would much prefer