The Snake Pit
- Author:
Mary Jane Ward. Cassell & Co.
8s. 6d.
Any attempt to depict a medical illness in a biographical form is difficult enough to a trained observer if it is to remain a true likeness ; to attempt such from the sufferer’s point of view of a fully fledged psychosis and at the same time maintain that semblance of coherence which is necessary if it is to remain intelligible, is well nigh impossible. It is not surprising, therefore, on commencing this book to find oneself at a loss? our orientation is disturbed, and until the mind of the reader is attuned, it gropes about in a motley of impressions as confused as is indeed the sufferer. The initial resistance of trying to make sense out of confusion gradually yields to a passive absorption?at times misty, at times clear?but with increasing fascination, so that we follow closely the strivings of this tormented mind on its vacillating and irregular path slowly upwards towards recovery,?especially so, as our understanding increases.
It is a good book and well written. It is good from two points of view. First what we learn about the patient and mental illness as a whole, and secondly about Mental Hospitals. We realize that this patient is a sick person?ill, and yet perhaps to many, rather different to what we would visualize an insane person to be. We are able to feel acutely for her without that sense of repugnance which is so easy to adopt on a superficial contact. In fact in some passages, one is almost tempted to believe at first sight she is the subject of victimization, until we realize her lack of insight, and that not only does she view things differently, but to her they are different. Despite her loss of contact and strangeness, she yet realizes early that she is in a Mental Hospital and how impossible it is for her to convey to others how she actually feels?that even when she may appear well, she knows that things are not quite what they should be and that finally?even when better?the dreadful problem of readjusting to an outside existance is not the simple process that is expected.
As to the hospital (even though American), I think I can say it is very representative in the main, or at least from the patient’s point of view, of those here-?that human relations being what they are, it is impossible to expect a large community under enforced conditions, to live as one big happy family. In fact, many Mental Hospital patients are not happy ; they do miss their liberty and other amenities and few are so insensible to their surroundings not to long for home. Equally too, it must be realized that being ill they are in as much pain as their counterpart, the physically sick ; perhaps even more so, as a mental anxiety, fear or whatever it may be, is of long duration and inescapable. The days of the manacling of patients may be over, but it is easy to see that even though no patient is ever badly treated, the problem is far from solved and will remain so until further treatments can promise an even higher degree of cure, especially for those who, at the moment, become long-term residents.
I have hardly been able to touch the fringe of the many problems raised in this book?the more discerning will find much food for thought, and even the psychiatrist will find the study enlightening. R.B.M.
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