Patients in the Yale study lived in a hospital ward designed to resemble a home-like setting. They received self-help therapy, vocational counseling and jobs, and were linked to family and friends to provide support. Scientists don't know what causes schizophrenia, but the illness normally appears when the body undergoes hormonal and physical changes in late adolescence and young adulthood. Scientists speculate that people with schizophrenia may have an imbalance of dopamine and serotonin, two key brain chemical messengers that affect the way a person's brain reacts to sensory stimuli. Consequently, when these people face a crisis or are under stress, their senses become overloaded by sounds, sights, smells and tastes, which can spill over into hallucinations and delusions.
Schizophrenia seems to run in families, too.
Compton, for instance, had an uncle with schizophrenia. But genetics doesn't explain all of it. The good news is that treatment has come a long way from the 1960s and early 1970s, said experts, when the severely mentally ill were written off, given debilitating medications and confined to locked wards. That's when I resolved to become a psychiatrist. I thought if I ever get out of this, I'm going to unlock these doors and provide help in a way that I wish someone had been there for me.