A psychoanalyst's sensitive exploration of schizophrenia through the stories and words of three women patients

In the spring of 1994, psychoanalyst-in-training Steven Poser arrived for his clinical internship at one of the last remaining nineteenth-century mental hospitals in New England. Intending to observe and offer compassionate care to the most chronically ill patients, he ended up staying for two years, forming close therapeutic relationships with three female patients suffering from schizophrenia, "Agnes," "Mrs. Lutzky," and "Lucia."

Drawing from his clinical diary, Poser presents his encounters with the women in their own words, each speaking in a poetry of her own invention. Rather than treat the women as casualties of their illness or their words and actions as nonsensical, Poser sees his patients as dignified and struggling people—and not as markedly different from the rest of us as we might think. This is a deeply human book about the frailty and importance of human connection and the intangibly healing force of being heard.