Paranoid Schizophrenia In President Kennedy's Divided Minds

When I was choosing a selection for this assignment I was immediately intrigued by the title of the book, Divided Minds. I have five year old identical twin daughters that share a genetic predisposition to developing Schizophrenia. My father in-law was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia when he was in his mid 20’s. I thought I would gain more knowledge through reading this book. I cannot say that I have gained any more educational knowledge on the disorder of schizophrenia. However, I do believe I gained more insight into the minds of people who struggle with this disorder and how it can affect family members. The prologue of this book captivates the reader’s interest almost immediately. It really sets the stage for what comes next. The

Rosen (p.28). I personally believe this is the stressful life event needed to trigger Pamela’s disorder, when there is a genetic endowment present. According to the biological view of abnormality and specifically the gene-environment interaction theory, genotypes respond to environmental variations in different ways. This theory would certainly relate to this book and how Pamela develops schizophrenia, the gene is her inherited risk while the stressful life even would be the assassination of JFK as the environmental factor. Both of these in combination triggered the onset of Pamela’s Schizophrenia disorder.

Carolyn relates to the term “relative poverty” because she has such a strong connection with her identical twin sister, which I believe takes a toll on her emotionally because she cares and is concerned for Pamela. The term relative poverty means that we could look around and see others in poverty and feel bad them. Then we would become depressed because of feeling bad for

Pamela relates to labeling theory because once she is labeled and diagnosed with schizophrenia the people in her life see her behavior as deviant. Carolyn can also relate to this theory because she also sees her twin sisters behavior as deviant. In the book, Carolyn states, “I’m worn out trying to find reasons for Pammy to stay alive” (p. 263). Carolyn was having a hard time calming her sister down and then realized that she doesn’t want to live her life alone without her twin. According to Stress theory, Carolyn should have been the one to have an onset of mental illness. Caroyln describes how she has many thing on her plate. “My own psychiatric patients are also in crisis, my marriage is falling apart, and I have two children to help through the inevitable divorce. I have little energy for myself, let alone to keep hope alive for Pammy” (p. 263). My interpretation of Carolyn in this part of the book is that I see her in the exhaustion stage of the stress theory. Usually this is the stage where animals develop illness so I was thinking since her genetic predisposition is so high because of her identical twin sister that it would eventually surface in Carolyn as