Joel LeBlanc, a 34-year-old quiet, gray-haired intellectual, stared through his glasses at a doctor lighting a cigarette. “Why is he doing that?" Joel wondered. Suddenly he thought he knew. “He hates me. That’s why. He hates me.” Joel saw another doctor smile. “Why is he smiling? Because he hates me too. They all hate me. They want to hurt me.” Joel wanted to hurt them first. He saw a stool “I'll bash that smiler's head in,” Joel decided. He rushed to the stool. Then he stopped short. Have you guessed what was wrong with Joel? He was showing symptoms of schizophrenia — a dread mental disease. If Joel was a real schizophrenic, he probably would be taken to a mental hospital like 350,000 other victims in this country. His chances for full recovery would be slight. But Joel’s symptoms disappeared in less than two hours. He was not a schizophrenic. He was a subject in a dramatic experiment that may point to a cure of the illness that accounts for half of our mental patients and one-quarter of all those who lie in hospital beds...

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