ABSTRACT
Psychosis exists worldwide and it is estimated that about one individual in a hundred will at some point in their lives personally experience schizophrenia. John Perceval's account is an example of a narrative composed some time after his experience of psychosis and of his treatment in two asylums and written after his recovery. First-hand accounts of people who have experienced or who are experiencing psychosis have an immediate authority of personal experience. Rubin-Rabson expresses reservations about 'personal retrospections of mental illness during periods of remission or recovery'. Conveying a personal recollection of schizophrenia may involve consulting others to get the right metaphor or taking account of lessons learned from a 'memoir teacher', as Elyn Saks does with her friend Stephen Behnke. Frith and Johnson provide examples from case material in the North-wick Park study of first episodes of schizophrenia. Elyn Saks, a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of California, provides a record of her life with schizophrenia.
