Schizophrenia

...ba href=/schizophrenia/a/bThe striking thing about Achieving You is how clearly its members represented the very combination of empowerment and victimization that is so perplexing among American young women today.

These and other young women embody a sort of ba href=/schizophrenia/a/b in which they surge ahead in academics and athletics while at the same time adopt behaviors that compromise them.

The obvious question is why.My interviews and observation suggest one possible explanation: That the girls' self-destructive anxieties and compulsions arose, at least in part, to meet a powerful need.

That need was to maintain a check on their own forcefulness, that is, to dilute their otherwise formidable strength."A girl worries about being too smart, too successful, too intimidating, too blond, too promiscuous," says Erin Lenger, 23, an original member of Achieving You, which is still active at Miami.Not surprisingly, the members of Achieving You never arrived at a single answer to the question, 'Why did this happen to me and so many other girls?

' But they were able to establish at least one thing: In their struggles they had found the strength to heal themselves and now stood in a position to help others to do the same.

Unbowed, emboldened even by their own battles for self-worth, they had emerged stronger, more connected to other women and more aware of the complexity of being female."I turn to other girls and stories that make me feel a little more normal," Lenger says.

"Achieving You did that for me, m...

...ba href=/schizophrenia/a/b that doesn't respond to drugs; those suffering from both mental illness and drug abuse; patients who repeatedly stop taking medications.More than a quarter of the hospitalized patients are state prisoners being evaluated for their competence to stand trial or receiving treatment after being found not guilty by reason of insanity.Childs said that a growing body of research suggests that a cheerful treatment setting helps patients with physical ailments heal faster.

One study showed that patients left the hospital after abdominal surgery on average a day earlier if they were in a room with natural light compared with artificially lit rooms.

''If the setting is important in medical care, it's even more important in psychiatric care," Childs said.

''If we can get average length of stay down to a year, I'll be thrilled."Elegant Romanesque-style stone buildings, with a commanding clock tower atop the administration building, now dominate the hilltop where the new hospital would be built.

When it was built in 1873, the Worcester Insane Asylum embodied the humane care for the mentally ill championed by reformer Dorothea Dix.

Quiet and imposingly beautiful, the campus was a city unto itself, with a nursery for babies born there and cropland to raise food.''The idea was to give people peace and quiet and serenity," Childs said.

However, ''once you went in, you didn't come out," she said, pointing out that many patients lived out their lives there and were buried nearby.Th...

...ba href=/schizophrenia/a/b who was convicted of murdering his mother has been sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility for parole for 10 years.

In January, a judge found Bradley Brooks guilty of the second-degree murder of his mother Marlene Gustavson in 2004.

Brooks didn't deny he stabbed his mother, although his lawyer argued he was not guilty because he's mentally ill and didn't understand his actions.

Under the Criminal Code, a second-degree murder conviction automatically results in a life sentence.

On Monday, the judge said Brooks must wait 10 years before he can apply for parole.

That's the minimum period allowed.

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