Photo de l'auteur
4 oeuvres 127 utilisateurs 2 critiques

A propos de l'auteur

Œuvres de Gail Hornstein PhD

Étiqueté

Partage des connaissances

Sexe
female

Membres

Critiques

Frieda Fromm-Reichmann was the psychiatrist who treated schizophrenic patient "Deborah Blau", aka Hannah Green, aka Joanne Greenberg with psychotherapy. Deborah/Hannah/Joanne was cured, and went on to write I Never Promised You a Rose Garden about her experiences, a novel that I read many times when I was young and remember fondly.

This biography is a detailed account of Fromm-Reichmann's early life, training, and immigration to the United States, where she found a professional home at Chestnut Lodge, a private mental hospital in Rockville, Maryland. There's a lot of detail about the history of Chestnut Lodge and the atmosphere there for doctors and patients. The author also discusses the debates in the psychiatric community about whether talk therapy can work for schizophrenics. Fromm-Reichmann seems to have had a special rapport with patients and some successes, but she wasn't able to train others to get the same results. There is debate about whether Deborah/Hannah/Joanne was even schizophrenic.

It was certainly well researched but really, much more about its subject and about psychiatry than I cared about.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
piemouth | Sep 14, 2016 |
I found Agnes's Jacket to be a very uneven work. On one hand, I was very moved by the possibility that self-help groups can be a valuable resource. Hornstein spends time in England where the mentally ill are often considered by to be “experts by experience” able to assist one another and insist that the psychiatric professions truly listen to them about the nature of insanity. They exchange ideas on dealing with symptoms that they cannot get rid of; I would think that this might be limited to the higher functioning insane. Others might not be sufficiently articulate, but perhaps different types of groups could help different people.

Hornstein comments that people who hear voices can often help one another cope. That seems very plausible and promising to me. But surely one's underlying attitude toward the voices makes a difference: the person who genuinely believes that there is a radio transmitter in his/her head might not see how practicing yoga would be to the point. I would think that they would feel more in need of a surgeon to remove the transmitter. Still, if self-help is effective, I support it. At least they could be offered the support of people who understand and sympathize with their problems. Unlike Hornstein, I don't think it necessarily follows that there are not underlying chemical bases for some mental illnesses.

Hornstein also quotes an author know as John Custance who suffered from mental illness and wrote books on the subject. (She is very disappointed to find out that his son does not remember life with father fondly.) Custance argued that if a lunatic tells his doctor that he sees a devil, the doctor should regard the devil as being as actual as the lunatic and investigate what kind of devil he has seen. Certainly talking to the lunatic about an imaginary devil may reveal more about the patient's mind, but if the devil is actual, than the lunatic is wasting his time seeing a psychprofessional—he/she should be seeing an exorcist.

I am also not convinced by Hornstein's rejection of insanity, or some of it, as chemical imbalances. If, as she says, professional opinion shifts every forty years or so, I would assume that neither physical nor life history explanations are adequate. It may be that insanity, like blindness, can have a variety of sources and histories. Not all of her examples support her premise. “Peter, from Jesus”, for example, had not history of known traumas underlying his sudden breakdown, and found talk therapy irrelevant. If one has read popular works (and I would presume professional literature) about mental illness, one has also read about people who found talk therapy useless and drugs like Prozac a miracle cure, so perhaps the message is that there aren't simple answers. Mental patients, like all patients, need to be listened to. Agnes's jacket, the central symbol of the book, is ambiguous in this regard. It may be a statement from Agnes's point of view, but it is incomprehensible to the rest of the world, even to those who try earnestly to understand it.

Hornstein rejects the chemical imbalance theory because she does not like the assumption that the imbalance is incurable, although it can be treated. It doesn't matter what she doesn't like, it matters what it true. She does not offer any evidence that her preferred support groups cure the condition, and it is ironic that such groups, especially those in the twelve step tradition, has also been severely criticized for arguing that the problem will be life-long.

She also criticizes the chemical treatments because there are problems with side effects. That is very true, and not inconsequential, but it is also true with diseases that are generally agreed to be physical. I stopped taking the medicine I was given for migraines because I hated the side effects, but other people successfully use the same medicine. It really isn't evidence against the chemical imbalance theory, just against carelessness in the use of medication.

On the balance, self-help and guidance from mental patients sounds like it might be promising, but I am not convinced that insanity may not be, in some cases, chemical, and that drugs cannot be helpful.
… (plus d'informations)
½
1 voter
Signalé
PuddinTame | Jul 26, 2009 |

Statistiques

Œuvres
4
Membres
127
Popularité
#158,248
Évaluation
4.2
Critiques
2
ISBN
13
Langues
1

Tableaux et graphiques