“Esther’s treatment course mirrors that of Plath’s and highlights the limitations of psychiatry at the time. Acutely ill patients had few treatment options, and psychiatry had yet to define itself as an evidence-based medical specialty. Four years earlier, the neurologist who developed the lobotomy had won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Some psychiatrists were still using this form of psychosurgery as a treatment for troubled descendants of “schizophrenogenic mothers.” Indeed, many of the available interventions were used to control patients rather than treat them. ECT initially fit this description until it was improved, validated, and ethically practiced.”
Taylor, Joseph J., Hedy Kober, and David A. Ross. “The Electrochemical Brain: Lessons from the Bell Jar and Interventional Psychiatry.” Biological Psychiatry (1969), vol. 84, no. 3, 2018, pp. e23-e24.
