My Mysterious Son: A Life-Changing Passage Between Schizophrenia and Shamanism

Dick Russell, a professional journalist, turns his detailed attention to the sojourn that his son, Franklin, and their extended family have taken in the almost 20 years since Franklin first experienced psychosis at age 17. The beginning of the book will be familiar to those of us who have treated or loved or been someone who has experienced psychosis. The confusion of the early years, as answers and education are sought, the multiple hospitalizations, the ambivalent attitude toward psychiatric medications, and the well-meaning but often fragmented care system are familiar and well documented. Along the way, through their frustrations, Russell and his family find people who are helpful and kind. Less than an indictment of the traditional system of care, this is a travelogue through its dimensions and limitations.

The book ventures into less familiar territory literally and figuratively after the Russells travel to Africa. The father notices that Franklin, a biracial American, seems to connect on a deep level with this land. In attempting to exploit this insight, Dick Russell is led to Malidoma Patrice Somé, an African shaman who has spent much time in the West. Father, mother, and son all interact with Somé and others, and through these interactions, Franklin seems to improve. He appears happier in his life, he is more engaged with his love of music and technology, and his family has a deeper connection to him as well. And this is not a journey that solely involves the son; both father and mother are deeply engaged and evolving in their own ways as well.

This book will be of interest to a wide audience—those with a curiosity to understand psychosis from a frame that extends beyond the medical model, families who are searching for ways to connect with their loved ones who may seem lost in psychosis, and those with an interest in spiritualism and the overlap between psychotic states and shamanic experiences. I did not read it as an antipsychiatry treatise; Franklin receives the best of Western medicine, and at book’s end he remains living in a residential program and taking clozapine. But the narrative highlights how, even with the best care we have to offer, some people are still left living diminished lives. Recovery comes in many forms, but one recurrent theme in recovery principles is the need to treat the person who is ill with respect, to help the person to make meaning of his or her life experiences, and to make a human connection. I read this as one family’s attempt to make meaning of a son’s experience and to cross the divide between the world of our collective shared reality and that of a style of communication and behavior that is hard for many of us to fathom.