Mental-Illness

In 1930, four identical baby girls were born to a family in a small Midwestern town. Genetically, they were as similar as four humans can be—monozygotic quadruplets, sharing 100% of their DNA. They grew up in the same house, with the same parents, eating the same food, attending the same schools. And all four developed schizophrenia. On the surface, this seems like a clear-cut case of genetic determinism: identical genes, identical illness. ...

In July 1959, social psychologist Milton Rokeach gathered three psychiatric patients in a room at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan. Each man had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. And each man believed, with absolute conviction, that he was Jesus Christ. Rokeach’s hypothesis was straightforward: when confronted with two other people making the same claim, at least one of them would experience cognitive dissonance strong enough to crack their delusion. Face-to-face with contradictory evidence, reality would reassert itself. ...

In the winter of 1878, a Cree man named Swift Runner arrived at a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in Alberta, Canada. He was emaciated, nearly dead from starvation. He said his family—his wife and six children—had all died during the harsh winter. He’d buried them in the snow. He was the only survivor. The authorities were suspicious. Swift Runner showed signs of starvation, but not as severe as someone who’d watched his entire family die of hunger should show. ...