At the time when the Galvin boys are being diagnosed with schizophrenia, studies in mental illness claim the parents are responsible. How does the Galvin family adapt when the boys develop schizophrenia? Do any of the family members handle it better or worse than others?ģ. How does schizophrenia present differently in each of the Galvin boys?Ģ. In Hidden Valley Road, each of the Galvin boys who are diagnosed with schizophrenia show different symptoms. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family’s unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins–aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony–and they worked hard to play their parts. After World War II, Don’s work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. READERS GUIDE Introduction The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science’s great hope in the quest to understand the disease.ĭon and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream.
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