Women's Encounters with the Mental Health Establishment : Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper

Explore women’s first-person experiences with the mental health establishment! This unique contemporary anthology of women’s experiential writing shares women’s realities, perceptions, and experiences (positive and negative) within the therapeutic environment. These artistic expressions of personal experience will help women understand their own encounters in a new light. They are also instructive and enlightening for any practitioner working with women in a mental health setting. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s famous short story (included here), The Yellow Wallpaper, which inspired this title, has come to represent the struggle of contemporary women to be understood by the therapeutic milieu from whom they seek psychological support and psychiatric treatment. An icon of feminist writing, the 1892 story symbolizes affirmation and validation for the female experience regarding mental health and therapy. This anthology, in the spirit of Gilman’s work, gives voice to today’s women so that their own encounters with the mental health establishment can be validating and affirming to others. It will also enlighten those in the helping professions as they extend their services to women in a time of growing need and shrinking resources. In addition to The Yellow Wallpaper and a foreword and afterword by noted psychiatric professionals, Women’s Encouters with the Mental Health Establishment: Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper also contains works by authors including: Sylvia Plath Kate Millett Anne Sexton Lauren Slater Martha Manning Elayne Clift and many more! Through prose and poetry, the contributors to this volume offer a creative, artistic, and highly readable contribution to the literatures of women’s studies and psychology! Visit the author’s website at http://www.sover.net/~eclift.

Explore women’s first-person experiences with the mental health establishment!

This unique contemporary anthology of women’s experiential writing shares women’s realities, perceptions, and experiences (positive and negative) within the therapeutic environment. These artistic expressions of personal experience will help women understand their own encounters in a new light. They are also instructive and enlightening for any practitioner working with women in a mental health setting.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s famous short story (included here), The Yellow Wallpaper, which inspired this title, has come to represent the struggle of contemporary women to be understood by the therapeutic milieu from whom they seek psychological support and psychiatric treatment. An icon of feminist writing, the 1892 story symbolizes affirmation and validation for the female experience regarding mental health and therapy. This anthology, in the spirit of Gilman’s work, gives voice to today’s women so that their own encounters with the mental health establishment can be validating and affirming to others. It will also enlighten those in the helping professions as they extend their services to women in a time of growing need and shrinking resources.

In addition to The Yellow Wallpaper and a foreword and afterword by noted psychiatric professionals, Women’s Encouters with the Mental Health Establishment: Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper also contains works by authors including:

• Sylvia Plath
• Kate Millett
• Anne Sexton
• Lauren Slater
• Martha Manning
• Elayne Clift
• and many more!

  Through prose and poetry, the contributors to this volume offer a creative, artistic, and highly readable contribution to the literatures of women’s studies and psychology!

  Visit the author’s website at http://www.sover.net/~eclift.

Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 About the Editor 13 Contributors 14 Foreword: Women As Subjects of Their Experiences 20 Acknowledgments 24 Prologue: The Yellow Wallpaper 26 I: HOSPITALS 42 From The Loony-Bin Trip 44 Life Inside 46 Ode to Carrie White 65 From The Bell Jar 66 For Love Nor Money 70 Since You Asked, Here Is Why 79 Death Interrupted 86 Outstanding Charges 87 The Setup 88 The Scream 100 Hospital 107 Safe Places 111 The Waiting Room 128 Home Sweet Nuthouse 129 i remember 134 Bathing in the Bin 137 Outtakes 139 You, Doctor Martin 143 II: THERAPY 146 From Welcome to My Country 148 The Caregivers’ Dance 151 The Psychoanalyst’s Daughter: A Memoir 160 Vested Interests 170 Putdown 171 Is She Really Listening? 172 We Go a Little Over the Hour 177 Suite 506 179 Escaping the Cabin 181 Therapy 189 Preview 191 From Undercurrents 195 It's Going to Be a Great Daypro 198 Side Effects May Include: 199 Transference 201 Consult 205 Why Have You Come to My Office Today? Why Have You Come to the Hospital? 206 My Last Freudian 207 Fragments 208 Misinterpreting Body 209 Dr. Abe’s Psychotherapy 210 Going Out 213 Therapy Session 214 Just One Question Doctor—About My Termination 215 The Story of My Therapy 217 III: HOPE 218 Mrs. Gould 220 Woman Knows It’s Time to Quit Therapy 225 Simple Prayer 226 Clarity 229 Saying Goodbye 230 Keeping Our Distance 232 Carol 234 Reflections for a Psychiatric Resident 236 When Therapy Works 238 Afterword 240 Commencing with Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the iconic 1892 short story on women's quest for mental health, this anthology includes 53 personal essays and poems on struggles toward hope and recovery by Sylvia Plath, Kate Millet, Anne Sexton, and lesser-known writers, therapists, and /former patients. Clift, a Vermont writer cum women's studies and health communications instructor, contributes a recollection of childhood visits to her institutionalized mother. Includes an afterword by a Purdue U. psychiatric nursing instructor. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR