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Hidden Valley Road

Inside the Mind of An American Family
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Jan 12, 2021kathyonpost rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
A fascinating look at an increasingly chaotic family of 12 children, 10 boys. There is a lot of competition and fighting between the boys that becomes increasingly violent. And one by one the boys start experiencing irrational beliefs which cause them to do irrational things like throwing all the furniture out of the house, or walking down the centre line of a highway at night. Finally the behaviour is given a label-schizophrenia. We learn how the family attempted to cope with and get treatment for the boys. They are sent to various psychiatric hospitals and later special facilities that temporarily house and treat the boys. ECT therapy, drug therapy, restraints-it becomes a revolving door where they are stabilized for a couple of months and then released back home, only to return to the hospital or clinic. The chaos in the family home never really stops. From the 50's to the present day, we learn that effective treatments for schizophrenia remain elusive.