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The Heart Too Long Suppressed: A Chronicle of Mental Illness
A writer and Broadway actress recounts her more than forty-year struggle with mental illness, during which she pursued her career ambitions and fought against a pervasively ignorant medical system.
- GenresPsychology
Hardcover
First published May 4, 2001
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December 9, 2017
Hebald's memoir was compelling through the first half, as she describes her childhood and details her emotional reactions to abuse and early sexual experiences. Her life in the theatre world was interesting to read about, especially in light of recent unsurprising revelations of sexual misconduct on the part of powerful men in entertainment.
The middle part of the book, for me, lagged and was confusing as Hebald moves through a succession of appalling psychiatrists and psychologists. Yet, the inclusion of detailed sessions with these doctors is important in highlighting the truly obsfucating and misogynistic nature of psychotherapy (very much informed by psychoanalysis at the time) and of diagnostic frameworks in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Shows why alliances between the ex-patient movement and second wave feminism made a lot of sense in the 70s and 80s as male mental health professionals routinely blamed women for mental distress they experienced as a result of trauma they had suffered at the hands of men, and took advantage of their patients to perpetuate further emotional, sexual, spiritual and financial abuse.
The latter part of the book was somewhat disjointed and I had difficulty following Hebald's denouement describing how she ultimately comes to terms with her past trauma and her visions. Basically her thesis, I think, is that she'd rather be mad on her own terms than to exist in a state of true illness, manipulated physically by drugs and mentally by psychologists.
The middle part of the book, for me, lagged and was confusing as Hebald moves through a succession of appalling psychiatrists and psychologists. Yet, the inclusion of detailed sessions with these doctors is important in highlighting the truly obsfucating and misogynistic nature of psychotherapy (very much informed by psychoanalysis at the time) and of diagnostic frameworks in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Shows why alliances between the ex-patient movement and second wave feminism made a lot of sense in the 70s and 80s as male mental health professionals routinely blamed women for mental distress they experienced as a result of trauma they had suffered at the hands of men, and took advantage of their patients to perpetuate further emotional, sexual, spiritual and financial abuse.
The latter part of the book was somewhat disjointed and I had difficulty following Hebald's denouement describing how she ultimately comes to terms with her past trauma and her visions. Basically her thesis, I think, is that she'd rather be mad on her own terms than to exist in a state of true illness, manipulated physically by drugs and mentally by psychologists.
Displaying 1 of 1 review