Of the numerous mental and behavioral disorders with
which psychiatrists and mental health care providers are
confronted, none is more challenging and central to their
mission than schizophrenia. This brain disorder strikes
persons as they are entering the prime of their life and, in
many cases, runs a recurrent and ultimately chronic course
that leads to substantial disability. This most devastating
of mental illnesses affects the essence of what makes people human: their personality and intellect. For these reasons schizophrenia is considered the prototypic mental
illness.