[mentalhealth]

I would highly recommend that anyone who finds this interesting read the book by Rokeach (there's a good, cheap edition from NYRB that I buy a lot of people as a gift) -- goes into far more detail, particularly with respect to the medical aspects.

It's also a great case study to demonstrate the falsity of the idea that there's any rationality to delusion -- the mind routes around thinking critically about true delusions in a fundamental way. It's not possible to reason your way out of a delusional state.

[ttctciyf]

I read Rokeach's book a good few years ago, and found it more interesting for the incidental detail than for the larger narrative or for drawing conclusions from.

As the article notes, as a "scientific" experiment, the methodology was badly flawed, and the narrative (as I recall) is impaired by the repetitious and somewhat theory-laden recounting of the trajectories of the inmates.

Nonetheless, as you say, it's worth reading for anyone whose interest is caught by the article. I'd also recommend another book I read around the same time, Operators and Things [1], which is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Three Christs, having been (apparently) written by someone visited suddenly by clinical paranoia about that experience; it's strong on narrative, weak on clinical detail, quite possibly fictional, and with perhaps a more cheerful ending.

[1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/761935.Operators_and_Thin...