Who Is The Doctor?

In the book Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Susanna Kaysen was only 18 years old when she agreed to enter a medium security psychiatric facility in Boston, McLean hospital in April 1967, after a failed suicide attempt. She insisted that her over dose on aspirin was not a suicide attempt, but after a 20 minute interview the doctor decided she needed to be admitted to a hospital. During her prolonged two-year stay at the hospital Kaysen describes the issues that most of the patients in her ward have to deal with and how they all differently deal with the amount of time they must stay in the hospital for. While in the hospital Kaysen experienced a case of depersonalization where she tried to pull the skin of her hands to see if there were bones underneath, after a failed escape attempt. Soon, after going to therapy and analysis she was labeled as having recovered from borderline personality disorder. After her release she realizes that McLean Hospital provided patients with more freedom than the outside world, by being free responsibility of parental pressure, free from school and job responsibilities, and being free from the “social norms” that society comes up with. Ultimately, being in captivity gave the patients more freedom then in society and created a safe environment in which patients wanted to stay in.

Nellie Bly faked insanity and got into an asylum to journal in New York City. She wrote a book about her brutal experiences at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwells Island called 10 Days in A Mad House. Nellie wanted to get herself checked into the asylum because she read about the horrible conditions of other asylums. Her main goal was to expose the asylum and get help for the mentally ill. Nellie wondered as she asked her editor “How will you get me out, after I once get in?” “I do not know.” he replied, “but we will get you out even if we have to tell who you are.” Nellie didn’t have much faith in her plan to deceive the insanity experts, although, the plan worked. Nellie reported from the mad house, extreme temperatures, abuse from the workers, and rotten food. Not to mention, they were forced to sit on a cold hard bench from 6 A.M until 8 P.M, and if they moved or talked, they would be beaten. Nellie states “ the asylum was in such

After this episode a professor convinced her to go to the hospital and reluctantly she complied. This hospital did not take kindly to her psychosis and restrained her numerous times with straps. She had never been treated this way before and was confused and frightened. She later said for a hospital for the mentally ill it had been a brutal experience (157). She then was moved to a different hospital, memorial Unit 10 (MU10) where she was first diagnosed with “Schizophrenia with acute exacerbation” (167). Though she had finally gotten a diagnosis for her broken brain it seemed more like a death sentence than a diagnosis. She continued on with life in depression, psychosis, and denial.

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In Bly’s time, mental illnesses were not taken seriously. Bly described the asylum she was admitted to as overcrowded, cold, and dirty (ch. 7). It defeated the purpose of trying to give extra attention to those in need. It was easy to get admitted into an institution, but nearly impossible to make it out because the treatment was not treatment.

illness that caused them to act so strange (L. Annika). They thought that the mental illness they

In Nellie Bly’s excerpt from ten days in a mad house she goes on crazy trip through a lunatic asylum. The place no man or women wants to end up, this insane asylum is gruesome to patients, unfriendly, and not helpful. She has to come in contact with miserable treatments that are useless to help ones state of mind. This asylum is the complete opposite of what a normal mental institute should be like. Nellie Bly is able to communicate with the rest of society and explicit the truth about what is going on in these asylums. The lunatic asylum represents society as a whole; the Excerpt from Nellie Bly 's 1887 non-fiction novel 10 Days in the Madhouse exemplifies how horrid the medical treatment was for mental illness in women as well as societal perception’s of women’s psychological issues in the eighteenth century.

The doctor’s anecdote of his wife taking phosphates, tonics, journeys and air along with exercise was above reproach. If women had more of a voice, would approaches to treatment for mental illness have been more effective? Feeling powerless, the wife was relieved of her duties and cared for by her husband, the housekeeping was done by Jennie, her sister-in-law, and Mary cared for the baby.

For anyone who has watched the second season of American Horror Story, “Asylum”, they have probably questioned whether the inhumane treatment of the patients that occurred in the show actually happened. Although there is no proof for some of the events that occurred in the show, through research I learned that a journalist had actually disguised herself as a patient in order to learn about how they were being treated in the 1800’s. PBS, in their background of Around the World in 72 Days talks about the woman who inspired the film in their post “Nellie Bly”, explains that this journalist was actually Elizabeth Jane Cochran, whose pen name was Nellie Bly. She became a journalist after sending an angry reply to Erasmus Wilson’s column about how women belonged in the house and working women were “a monstrosity”. The newspaper was impressed with her writing and spirit and hired

This one swung the mentally ill person around while he/she was in a harness. This treatment supposedly ‘calmed the nerves’.” (Gray). Needless to say the treatment of the insane was horrid and unbelievable. In the eighteenth century at Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, the public could pay a penny for a privilege to watch the “freaks”; they could poke the caged patients with a long stick (Taylor).

In the first year, Susanna meets all the girls in the ward and tries to get treated for her symptoms. There are a lot of girls that Susanna mentions. The first girl she mentions about is Polly. Polly had sent herself on fire, and burned brutally. She has never once complained in the hospital, but she always listened to the other patients. The next girl is Lisa she is a sociopath. Lisa is always trying to escape the hospital. Daisy was a different girl; she had a thing for roasted chicken and laxatives. “Daisy was a seasonal even”, she came in during thanksgiving and stayed until Christmas, and also sometimes come on her birthday in May. On the other hand there was something peculiar about

Lauren Slater wrote in chapter three about David Rosenhan , studied on putting sane people into mental hospitals by faking their insanity. In the 1970’s, Rosenhan decided to study how the psychiatrist differentiates the “sane” from the “insane”. To begin his experiment, he asked eight others to join this experiment to answer his question due between the “sane” and “insane”. The participants were inculcated to say that they kept hearing a voice saying "thud". The interval of days that they approximately stayed, at minimum, in the hospitals, was nineteen days and the determined stay was fifty-two days. The experiment showed that the patients in the facility saw that the “insane” patient was sane as the psychiatrists think otherwise. The

Insanity is one condition that can be caused by just about anything. In the story, “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner, Miss Emily Grierson`s insanity has a notable source or two. Although Faulkner tells the story out of order, the beginning of her problems starts with her father, who was very controlling and never really allowed her associate with anyone. When her aunt Wyatt dies, her extended family also becomes distant from her. Her father dies and the town talks about her because they pity her. Soon after, a day laborer names Homer Baron comes to fix the pavement on her street. Unintentionally, Homer and Emily get together, causing the town to talk even more about her. Emily then buys arsenic, a toilet ring set and a men`s suit. Homer leaves town and comes back one night and is never seen again. When Miss Emily dies, the nosy town searches her house and finds a locked room in particular that contained a bed with a decaying man`s body, implying that Homer Baron has been dead for 30 years in Miss Emily’s house. Faulkner foreshadows Miss Emily`s insanity by conveying her relationships with her family, the condemnation of the town, and her inability to clearly

Although a light read, her experience is heart-breaking as she is abused at home, institutionalized, and instead of being treated for her depression, doctor’s attempt to “feminize” her with eye shadow and lipstick. She is the type of advocate that makes noise in a silence because she tells a tale that would otherwise be unknown.

Joan Busfield’s article also inspired this dissertation’s research concerning the gender anxiety of nineteenth-century mental illness. Busfield argued there was not a clear difference between women and men being admitted to the asylums based on ground of insanity. I found this interesting considering there was a social anxiety that women were committed