00:00Being a slightly over the top girl during the 60s could mean risking being hospitalized.
00:05a psychiatric clinic.
00:07I read Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen and I loved it.
00:10The book is an autobiography where the author tells of when she was only 18 years old and was hospitalized in a
00:16psychiatric hospital right around the end of the 1960s.
00:19Susanna was hospitalized during a period of great personal confusion and the doctors very quickly diagnosed her with
00:25borderline personality disorder.
00:27But she immediately questions this label and wonders if she was really sick or just a girl.
00:34a bit out of the ordinary for that time.
00:36Many patients from the 60s are considered problematic only because they do not respect the traditional roles imposed by society and the
00:44female rebellion is often medicalized.
00:46The book also shows the limitations of the psychiatric methods of the time, diagnoses were very rapid, labels extremely rigid.
00:53and above all, unquestionable treatments.
00:56It is thought-provoking that medicine is often strongly influenced by cultural context.
01:02When Susanna is hospitalized she finds herself in a period of great personal confusion, she doesn't know who she is or what
01:09wants to become and the hospital becomes a bit of this space where research then stops.
01:14The heart of the book lies precisely in this suspension, precisely in being interrupted between adolescence, adulthood and
01:21control and freedom.
01:23Another thing that works well in my opinion is the structure which is not entirely linear, which is strange considering that
01:28I usually struggle with somewhat fragmented structures.
01:32In fact, we have fragments, memories, episodes and even extracts from Susanna's medical records which make everything
01:39much more intimate and it really feels like you're in the writer's thoughts.
01:43Highly recommended if you are interested in the topics, it is also quite short, if you want you can read it in a weekend and it is
01:49very well written, the chapters are short.
01:50If you enjoyed Silvia Plath's The Bell Jar, I think this is perfect because it's really very
01:56similar in some respects.
01:57If you have already read it, if you have seen the film and have any opinion about it, please let me know.
02:03let me know in the comments.
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