The Clozapine Clinic

This book is the first ethnography of the little-known world of clozapine clinics in Australia and the United Kingdom. Anthropologist Julia Brown challenges some of the assumptions made about clozapine treatment and explores what it means to be diagnosed with 'treatment-resistant schizophrenia'.

Julia Brown, PhD, is an interdisciplinary anthropologist who investigates the lived experiences and ethical challenges of controversial biomedical treatments. She attends to issues of social inclusion and uncertainty in medicine, and the complexities of concepts such as health and quality of life.

Foreword;  Preface;  Introduction;  Part 1: Health Agency  1. A universal experience?  2. A framework for understanding health agency;  Part 1 conclusion;  Part 2: Blood work;  3. Clinic circuitries  4. Anxiety reconstituted  5. Flexible care  6. "The brain can't live alone"  7. Coagulation and flow  8. Social contact at a negotiable distance  9. Moral agency;  Part 2 conclusion;  Part 3: Embracing uncertainty;  10. A therapeutic dose  11. Mind-body-other  12. Complementary consumptions  13. Attending to the body and interpreting symptoms  14. Health system failures: "Morecould be done"  15. "Everyone's different"  Part 3 conclusion;  Part 4: Finding rhythm; freeing oneself;  16. Clozapine frames  17. Doing things; finding focus - alone and together  18. Wanting more: Security; order; and "the knock-on effect"  19. Pursuing mindfulness  20. Experiencing 'flow' and evading clinical concerns  Part 4 conclusion;  Conclusive reflections;  Acknowledgements;  Appendix I: Participant portraits;  Apendix II: Table of clozapine client demographics;  References