See a preview of this Truly CA episode.
Narrated by Rita Moreno, When Medicine Got it Wrong is the groundbreaking story of a small group of loving California families in the 1970s who challenged the commonly-held belief that schizophrenogenic parents caused schizophrenia. Angry at being blamed for an illness they knew was not their fault, mothers and fathers in San Mateo, California started Parents of Adult Schizophrenics (PAS) and began fighting for better understanding and treatment.
The story starts in 1974, and centers on two families -- the Oliphants and Hoffmans -- whose sons developed schizophrenia in their teens. Doctors told the boys that their parents were the cause of their problems. Medical records labeled each child as the "identified patient" in a dysfunctional family structure wherein the parents were more psychologically ill than the family member exhibiting delusional and psychotic symptoms. The cure: separation from the parents. The boys were institutionalized at Napa State Hospital, and the parents were warned that visits would be detrimental to their sons' chances of recovery.
When Medicine Got it Wrong shows how these families transcended extreme cultural shame to go public with their stories -- first by forming PAS, and then openly challenging doctors to recognize the medical nature of their children's ailment. The Oliphants and Hoffmans prompted researchers to question their assumptions about schizophrenia's etiology. Their passion inspired parents across the country to organize and lobby for research and more appropriate, compassionate care.
Their passion paid off: by the end of the 1970s neuroscience was investigating causes outside of family dysfunction and interpersonal relationships. Rapid discoveries in the next decades revolutionized medicine's understanding of these brain diseases. By the mid-1980s, textbooks dropped the term "schizophrenogenic," and in the 1990s pharmaceutical companies introduced the first new generation of medication in decades. Finally, these families began to see hope for their children.