Author: dcollins11

“The current informed consent model for ECT reflects an implicit commitment to the “brain-bound” model. With respect to potential side-effects, some of which include memory loss and cognitive impairment, it is common to find that they are characterized as predictable and reasonable outcomes that one would expect with direct brain intervention. These outcomes, however, are … [Read more…]

“The very start of the narrative signals an event that marked Cold War politics:the electrocution of the Rosenbergs, a seemingly all-American couple executed for working as spies for the communist government. Esther, despite constantly wanting to detach herself from the world around her, feels a certain fascination and repulsion towards their execution…” Parra Fernández, Laura … [Read more…]

“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 … [Read more…]

“However, the standard narrative of motherhood and housewifery hovers over her despite her detachment from it—she is always reflecting on marriage and looking for a partner after her failed relationship with Buddy Willard, although she claims to despise the housewife life embodied by her or Buddy’s mother. But the moment she feels inadequate at an … [Read more…]

“When Esther finds herself in this neither/nor which eventually leads her to be incarcerated—contained—in an asylum, she experiences radical truths about the mythical discourse of choice and individual freedom in a free society in which she was so far believing.” Parra Fernández, Laura de la. “‘We are all Mad here’: Sylvia Plath’s the Bell Jar … [Read more…]

“American women in the Cold War were encouraged to go back to the home and conform to this idea of a good life: a house in the suburbs, a providing husband, and kids, with the freedom, of course, of choosing among a wide variety of products at the supermarket. The feeling of emptiness and the … [Read more…]

“Clearly, in exploring patients’ experiences through literature, one has to acknowledge that the narratives are experiences by proxy — fiction is not equal to personal experience. However, the value of literature in understanding human experiences is widely accepted, and the emergence of the field of medical humanities suggests that literature may well enhance the practitioner’s … [Read more…]