MitchellCommentMemo5-9-Sonya

-Honestly, I'm not really sure what you're interested in...are you interested in ACTUALLY treating schizophrenia?...or just the use of robots as a treatment technique? -How would you compare the effectiveness of various psychological techniques? Do you have the expertise to do so? -Also, your data set might be too heavily reliant on expertise for what is "going on"...that is, because you're not a psychologist/psychotherapist, you'd need to rely HEAVILY on them to determine whether or not a treatment was helping or not. -By my understanding, schizophrenia is currently treated with heavy anti-psychotic drugs...perhaps a question for you could be why is there, for some, a shift in a "drug" understanding of treatment to a "robot" understanding of treatment?...I think this would be a much more fruitful STS direction...Or perhaps, since your aunt was schizophrenic, a cross-cultural examination of an understanding of what schizophrenia "is" and how it is/should be treated/dealt with.

-I'd like to see more of a history of schizophrenia...I'm sure it is a VERY interesting history...and I would love to hear it. -Likewise, I'm sure there is plenty that could be added about robots.

-Are the UN documents you mention binding? -This might sound like a joke, but it is not intended to be so...but if I understand correctly a schizophrenic person is one who is out of touch with "reality"...why would something as "unreal" as a robot help a schizophrenic person? To me, I would think it would only accelerate their trip into unreality...but what do I know. -You mention expensive drugs...will not robots be EVEN MORE expensive (especially in a place as far away from the robotic epicenter as Iran)? -I might be totally wrong, but "robots" as a treatment technique seems very First World-ish (could there be a question here about bifurcated medical treatments?)