Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital
- ISBN13: 9781586481612
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
The Boston Globe #1 bestseller and Book Sense 76 pick: A “candid and engrossing” history of “the Harvard of mental institutions,” and of the evolution of psychiatric treatment. McLean Hospital is one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious mental institutions in America. Its “alumni” include Sylvia Plath, John Forbes Nash, Ray Charles and Susanna Kaysen. James Taylor found inspiration for a song or two there; Frederic Law Olmsted first designed the grounds and later signed in as
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(out of 34 reviews)
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Review by for Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital
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By the time McLean Hospital opened its doors in the mid-19th century, mental
illness had been treated by such methods as lowering the patient into a
dungeon filled with snakes, pelting him with vigorous spouts of cold water,
inducing vomiting, draining great quantities of blood, spinning him on a
rotating board, dosing him with opium and hashish, and soaking him in a warm,
electrified bath. Founded at the dawn of the Freudian age, McLean offered
something revolutionary: fresh-baked rolls and art lessons, therapy by
landscaping. Alex Beam gives us a fascinating tour of the next century in
what one doctor bemoaned as the “medical playground” of psychiatry. On the
manicured campus in Belmont, doctors adopted and then rejected lobotomy,
adopted and rejected Freudian analysis, and were finally drawn with all their
profession in the direction of psychopharmacology. Anne Sexton taught poetry
there before her own suicide, and Sylvia Plath and Susanna Kaysen emerged
with syllabus-ready memoirs, and one patient of Freud’s greeted doctors every
morning by saying “I am my father’s penis.” Beam is a skeptical inquirer, and
his book may ruffle the feathers of local psychiatrists. (Has ruffled.) But for ordinary readers, he does what few writers
have done — tell with humor and intelligence the story of doctors and
patients groping through their suffering and toward some kind of answer.
Review by Michael Ramseur for Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital
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I really enjoyed reading Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America’s Premier Mental Hospital. It’s a book that I found both entertaining and erudite. Alex Beam’s exceptional writing talent brings to life a colorful and misunderstood institution, the famous McLean Hospital. He effortlessly interweaves annecdotal stories of the rich, famous, and talented (not necessarily in that order) with an insightful look into the history of mental health in America. I find this book to be both scholarly and a tantalizing read–no mean feat! Beam captures the tragic/comic aspects of his complex subject in a way that leaves me feeling wistful for the days when patients were able to stay long enough in a hospital to receive therapeutic benefits. Ultimately, the author vividly captures a McLean Hospital that, despite its faults and shortcomings, provided a much needed asylum from modern life for many fortunate enough to afford it.
Review by R. Hardy for Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital
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We still have psychiatric asylums, places where those intractable patients of minimal hope of improvement are kept. It is useful to look at the original sense of the word “asylum,” which meant a sanctuary, where those inside could take refuge from the outside. Such refuge is no longer the fashion, with “community care” (and plenty of antipsychotic medicines) deemed a sufficient refuge for most. But the rich are different, as everyone knows, and it used to be that there were posh institutes where a family could house (or warehouse) a dotty cousin and could rely upon discretion to keep the patient quiet and quietly removed from society, or Society. Now there is a biography of one of these institutions, one which had a reputation among the moneyed as being the best in the business. _Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of American’s Premier Mental Hospital_ (PublicAffairs) by Alex Beam tells the story of McLean Hospital, which had a long guest register of famous and moneyed clients.Beam does not spend much time on the early history of the hospital. In 1895 it moved to its grand grounds in the woodsy Boston suburbs and it became home to “an improved class of sufferers.” It housed a rather amazing cast of characters, and perhaps in tune with the upbeat and upscale McLean atmosphere, they are presented as amusing eccentrics. Beam does not emphasize the pain of their conditions, but he does show the futility of treatment (insulin shock, hydrotherapy, talk therapies, electroshock) for most of them. As pharmaceutical therapies and then managed-care became the way to treat psychiatric patients, McLean lagged behind. Many of the patients stayed on and on, getting expensive care paid in a lump initial sum by families who never wanted to see them again. The hospital is selling off its grand properties and is also going back to its roots; a new, small facility called the Pavilion will take psychiatric care of those whose families can afford $1,800 a night, and it is proving to be popular. McLean’s story is thus part of the larger modern history of inpatient psychiatric treatment, but it is a peculiar one because of its elite patients. It is a remarkable list who stayed there, and they were not all distinguished only by having wealth. The poets Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath wrote about their stays, as did Susanna Kaysen, author of _Girl Interrupted_. John Nash, of _A Beautiful Mind_, was there, as were James Taylor and his brother Livingston and sister Kate. Ray Charles was there following a drug bust. The celebrity patients come and go through these pages, which more importantly contain a entertaining history writ small of American psychiatry.
Review by JD for Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital
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By the time McLean Hospital opened its doors in the mid-19th century, mental illness had been treated by various methods: lowering the patient into a dungeon filled with snakes, pelting him with vigorous spouts of cold water, inducing vomiting, draining great quantities of blood, spinning him on a rotating board, dosing him with opium and hashish, and soaking him in a warm, electrified bath. Founded at the dawn of the Freudian age, McLean offered something revolutionary: fresh-baked rolls and art lessons, therapy by landscaping. Alex Beam gives us a fascinating tour of the next century in what one doctor bemoaned as the “medical playground” of psychiatry. On the manicured campus in Belmont, doctors adopted and then rejected lobotomy, adopted and rejected Freudian analysis, and were finally drawn with all their profession in the direction of psychopharmacology. Anne Sexton taught poetry there before her own suicide, and Sylvia Plath and Susanna Kaysen emerged with syllabus-ready memoirs, and one patient of Freud’s greeted doctors every morning by saying “I am my father’s penis.” Beam is a skeptical inquirer, and his book may ruffle the feathers of local psychiatrists. (Has ruffled, actually.) But for ordinary readers, he does what few writers have done — tell with humor and intelligence the story of doctors and patients groping through suffering and toward some kind of answer.
Review by Timothy Gager for Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital
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Alex Beam is a reporter/columnist for the Boston Globe. In this remarkable book he recounts the history of McLean’s Hospital in Belmont, which covers history of treatments, grounds, theory and perceptions. McLean’s is/was an incredible place. In it’s hayday its exterrior was set up like a country club, pools, tennis courts, while the treatment du jour was brain surgery (lobotomy) and electric shock therapy. It explores the “we’re the experts and you’re not” mentallity of psychiatrists which still occurs. It also recalls how it was the Betty Ford of mental health in-patient centers. The hospital served people such as James Taylor, Sylvia Plath, and Susanna Kaysen. Although mentioned in a chapter, the focus of this book is not just this. Interesting to know that poetry groups and groups for the arts are still occurring on-site.This book is a complete account of the exterrior and interrior workings of McLeans. Even today, if you walk the grounds, it feels like you’re walking a college campus. The place is green, and beautiful. Beam’s words and wit, his historic sense, his story telling, and his focus on detail is all encompassing. This book is wonderful and fascinating.