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Another interesting critique by the article, was that of the two different mental health manual editions that Kaysen used. It made me wonder what was in that old manual, like stated in the article, and if Kaysen would have thought that portions of borderline personality disorder had been wiped out with this new edition, like she mentioned homosexuality was.



I don’t agree with the review when it stated that Kaysen simply treats the people in the book as if they were characters for a story. I think there is a very real attachment to them that can be explicitly seen in the last chapters of the book. This can be seen especially when Kaysen is recalling Daisy’s suicide, as well as if that was a premature death by suicide, or would it have mattered if she would have waited to take her own life. The fact that Kaysen is still bringing up these thoughts over twenty years later shows that she still thinks of these people, and wonders about them and how they are or how they would be today if they were still alive. This is an aspect of the book that I feel the article neglects.

However, the article points out that we do not learn much of Kaysen’s condition. It also points out the most shocking extent of Kaysen’s time in the hospital when she is questioning if she was a real person, but addresses that we don’t really understand how the issue was cleared up. There are a lot of things about Kaysen’s time that are left unanswered like the article addresses; however, I feel that there are a lot of positives that the article leaves out. For one, the book allows the reader to see some of the day to day things that happen in a psychiatric facility that we may not otherwise have experience with. Also, like mentioned by Perring, the amount of time that Kaysen spent in this hospital is much longer than we usually see now days for patients that have the same diagnosis. Additionally, like the article mentions, Kaysen never seems to answer her own question about if this treatment is worthwhile, but perhaps what is more important is that because this piece of work is being shared, these questions are being asked.