For nearly a century the psychoanalysts have been writing op-ed pieces about the workings of a country they've never traveled to, a place that, like China, has been off-limits. Suddenly, the country has opened its borders and is crawling with foreign correspondents, neurobiologists are filing ten stories a week, filled with new data. These two groups of writers, however, don't seem to read each other's work. That's because the analysts are writing about a country they call Mind and the neuroscientists are reporting from a country they call Brain.

Mental illness seems to be a communication problem between interpreters one and two.

A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.

As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have.

This behavior may...counteract feelings of'numbness'and depersonalization that aries duriing periods of extreme stress.-153 Girl,Interrupted

Emptiness and boredom: what a complete understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair and boredom.

It is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it.