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¶ … Earth for Me
Sheehan, Susan. (1983) Is There No Place On Earth for Me? New York: Vintage Books.
When Benjamin Wilder reminisced recently about Sylvia's summer in Chicago, he said he could have tolerated Sylvia's presence in his house for a few more weeks if he had had to, but she was taking such a toll on him that he had asked himself whether it was his mission in life to make her behave acceptably. His answer to that question was no. He felt that if she had stayed with him much longer, he would have lost his mind." (Sheehan, 1983, 223)
The book Is there no Place on Earth for me? is an account of Sylvia Frumkin, a pseudonym used to identify the true identity of a young woman who began suffering from schizophrenia in her teens. Sylvia was institutionalized early in her illness, and spent much of her life going in and out of institutions. Her struggle was chronicled, through a series of interviews later turned into a narrator by Susan Sheehan. The book was written in the 1980's, pre-Beautiful Mind, before schizophrenia became even remotely tolerated on a mass, commercialized level in literature and film, much less in life. Sheehan was a reporter...
Frumkin's family situation as well as her character is detailed, without giving easy explanations as to how any specific family dynamic was the overriding cause of her illness. In the above-cited quote, the reader observes the insensitivity of the sufferer's uncle, who believed that Sylvia's own lack of a moral will, combined with the stupidity of her family whom refused to force the girl to…
The second part of the book details Frumkin's experiences with institutionalization in greater detail. Sheehan does not stint with her critique of the mental health care profession, which she describes in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest terms. Most specifically, Sheehan focuses on Creedmoor's overuse of electroshock techniques and hydrotherapy, both of which have since been shown to be largely ineffective in dealing with schizophrenia, the inadequacy of the facilities counseling, and the experimental 'let's see' approach to medication, which often resulted in patients being used as guinea pigs for medications with debilitating side effects. Even the food was standardized, according to computer. In the "computerized food plan," for instance, "pot roast was on the menu fifty-two times a year, not fifty-one or fifty-three times." (Sheehan 43)
The book, however, is not absent of hope. The fact that Sylvia was given voice to tell her story is hopeful in and of itself, and the book concludes, with not a rosy point-of-view about the mental health profession, then about the ability of individuals to recover and to reach some sort of tentative understanding of the world. To answer the question proposed deliberately by the title, yes indeed there is a place in the world for the Sylvia Frumkins of the world
Ironically, however, the pseudonym used for the protagonist underlines the fact that mental illness as severe as schizophrenia remains stigmatized in our society, particularly when the book was written during the 1980's. Prevailingly, the fear experienced by Sylvia's uncle that he would go mad himself if she remained with him, remains present in society -- today as well as twenty years ago. The uncle's punitive view towards the girl and her illness also shows how people still see mental illness as something communicative that they can 'catch' and thus fear those who suffer from it, as he said her presence, he feared, would make him go mad himself. The book is instructive about the field, not simply about the inaccuracies inherent in many misguided medical and psychological treatments, but also simply the way that schizophrenia and the human suffers of this debilitating illness are perceived by doctors, nurses, family members, and the psychiatric profession.
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