Mental Health and Society around the 60s and 70s…
In 1955, 560.000 people were treated in Hospitals in the US for severe mental illness, 67 years later in 2022 11.4 Million adults in the United States alone struggled with serious suicidal thoughts. But how can this number increase by so much? Surely things like social media play a role in this, but one of the main things is society. In the 1960s and 1970s mental health issues were not talked about and people did not believe in psychiatrists and mental health issues. Thankfully now, society is more open-minded and people are more aware of mental health issues and experience more and better treatment.
Sylvia Plath was one of those people who got treated for her mental health issues in the 1960s and 1970s and in her book “The Bell Jar" she talks about her experience of struggling with mental health issues in those years.
While she was still in New York for her summer program we started seeing the first signs of her mental illness, but it wasn’t until she came back home and found out about her rejection from the summer writing course that we got to know how severe her struggles were.
One observation that I made, was that her mother could have known about her depression and that most likely she knew about it but she was trying to ignore it because it was not socially acceptable at this time. After her suicide attempt, her mother seemed supportive to me and it seemed like she was not following stereotypical behaviors of society, but I could have not been proven more wrong. Although her mother was the one bringing her to the clinic to get the help she did not support her very much throughout the process and after Esther Greenwood got discharged from the clinic where she was treated, her mother just said that they should just forget everything that happened and move on. Maybe she just didn’t know better or maybe she was not aware that depression does not just disappear after you have been treated and gone to therapy, but maybe that is just how everybody thought during this time. I think nobody in society was aware that depression is a lifelong battle and that it can seem like it disappeared but then it will hit you again in just a blink. Esther’s mother represents society really well throughout the book. At first, you think they are supportive but as soon as you seem like you are better everybody looks weird at you, like you are this weird, messed up, broken person. Furthermore, Buddy Willard is also a good example for society. I don’t know what his intention behind this question was or if he was really just curious but asking Esther if it is his fault that all of his former girlfriends are mentally ill seems really harsh and disrespectful.
On the other hand, I can also see that he doesn’t know better because nobody in society got educated about mental illness and how it works. Either way that just seems like another example of how society is ignoring the importance of raising awareness for mental issues.
The Stigma of mental issues and suicide scared a lot of people from getting help so there were more than 560,000 people struggling however people were either too scared to get help or didn’t know enough about it.
Hi Laura, great post. I like how you focused on an overarching problem with society that this book relates to. The culture around mental health in the 60's and 70's was really well captured by Plath and you make good note of it in your post. A story like this in today's time would be much different, and hopefully have an easier and better recovery.
ReplyDeleteHey, like how you analyzed the behavior of the characters in the book to look at how society during Plath's time thought of mental illness. I think another way in which we can observe the general perception toward mental illnesses at that time is through how women were drugged while giving birth, which Esther describes as something men would have designed. This helps highlight that much of the medical field (including the mental health field) was dominated by the perspective from one specific group (ex. white, high-class male) and that treatments often weren't designed to optimize the experience of the patients.
ReplyDeleteUpon my initial reading, I picked up on Buddy being a possible representation of the world's lack of awareness surrounding the topic of suicide, but I somehow completely missed Esther's mother serving as a similar portrayal and I think your blog does a good job of presenting this idea. I like how you note that although Buddy and Mrs. Greenwood's actions may seem harsh or plain ignorant at times, it's not entirely fair to blame them given how practically nobody short of a professional would know how to handle a friend or loved one struggling with depression at the time. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Laura! Your point that Esther's mother serves as a representation of lack of mental health awareness is really interesting. Although she cared about Esther, she struggled severely in understanding her. Her comment after they met with Dr. Gordon about how "she knew Esther wasn't like those people," as well as her comment at the end of the novel about treating this whole experience as a "bad dream" and starting right back over, really show how lacking she was in knowledge about suicide and mental health, along with countless other examples. Although we look down on characters like Buddy Willard and Mrs. Greenwood, they are only products of this large societal stigma.
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