Nicolas Franck is a professor of medicine at Claude-Bernard-Lyon-I University and a hospital psychiatrist at Le Vinatier. He heads a research team working on schizophrenia at the CNRS Institute of Cognitive Science. He lives in Lyon.
A better understanding of schizophrenia: The sometimes inexplicable speech and behaviour of people suffering from shizophrenia can be perplexing to the people around them. They hear voices when no-one is speaking, they act on odd impulses, and are often incapable of managing day-to-day life. Plus they have great difficulty in communicating their feelings. This book provides the key to understanding what leads them to think and act as they do.

Better caring: The mysteries of schizophrenia have largely been explained and that has allowed us to take better care of people afflicted with the condition. What are the factors that will help a patient recover his former self? How do the treatments work?

Taboos and misinformation about schizophrenia are detrimental to its effective treatment. It is a condition that creates fear (the image of madness); and the media, by concentrating on the sensational — such as when a patient commits an act of violence — promote a disturbing image that has little basis in reality. Knowledge and treatment of this condition have seen great improvements. We must now broaden general understanding, and prevent certain cases of schizophrenia from passing undiagnosed.