Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of The Yellow Wallpaper, suffered from nervous breakdowns and depression. After three years of struggling with mental illness on her own, she made the decision to see one of the most renowned specialists of nervous diseases of her time (Gilman “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper” par. 4) (Poirier 15). That specialist was Weir Mitchell, inventor of the Rest Cure. Mitchel treated Gilman with this “cure”, which consisted of six weeks of bed rest and isolation (Herndl 53). Once the six weeks were over, he declared that Gilman had no disorder of any kind and sent her home with orders to “live as domestic a life as far as possible,” and to “never touch a pen, brush, or pencil again” (qtd. in Gilman “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper” par. 4). A grim sentence for a writer, but she followed Mitchel’s instructions for three months, and, according to Gilman herself, “…came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over” (qtd. in Gilman “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper” par. 5). It was only once Gilman decided to disregard the advice of Weir Mitchel and return to her love of writing that she recovered and, inspired by her experiences, wrote the Yellow Wallpaper. (Gilman “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper” pars. 6-7). Writing had a positive influence on the mental health of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was more beneficial than Weir Mitchel’s Rest Cure, and likewise, can be more beneficial for others who struggle with nervous or depressive disorders. Furthermore, writing has therapeutic benefits and can be useful, or an alternative, for modern day treatments and therapies.
Before there was Freud, there was Weir Mitchell and the Rest Cure. Similar to Freud, Mitchell was a neurologist. Both thought that medicine would eventually find a physical cause for mental illness, but unlike Freud, Mitchell believed that the physical was of more importance than the mental, even going so far as to say: “You cure the body and somehow find that the mind is also cured” (qtd. in Poirier 16). It was with that in mind that he created his treatment for neurasthenics, whom Mitchell described as “nervous women, who, as a rule, are thin and lack blood” (qtd. in Martin par. 2). Mitchel also claimed there were different causes of neurasthenia, depending on the sex of the patient. For men, the cause was from working too much. However, for women the cause was taking care of their families too much, especially if a member was sick, or it was from staying out late with friends, or focusing too much on education while being hormonal (Poirier pp. 17-18). These sexist ideals undoubtedly influenced Weir Mitchell as he created a treatment that would be readily accepted by the medical community of the 19th-century, and later be made infamous by the short story author Charlotte Gilman. (Martin pars. 1-5)
The Rest Cure was first presented to the public in 1873 when Weir Mitchell described how he had used it to successfully treat a nervous disease known as locomotor ataxia. Medical professionals of the time readily embraced this new-found cure, even calling it “the greatest advance of which practical medicine can boast in the last quarter of the century” (qtd. in Sharpe and Wessely par. 2). Mitchell went on to use the Rest Cure to treat other nervous disorders and even gunshot wounds (Poirier 17). While the Rest Cure may have been used to treat a large variety of diseases and injuries, it was mostly used on women with nervous disorders (Martin par. 3). Women who were prescribed the Rest Cure were isolated, forbidden from speaking to family members, and made to lie in a bed for 24 hours a day. For the first week, the female patient would be fed nothing but milk and, if they could not digest that, they were fed at least 18 raw eggs a day (Martin par. 3). Other components of the Rest Cure for women included regular massages, and electroshock therapy (Poirier 20). While some men were given the Rest Cure, they were not isolated and kept bedridden like the women were. Instead, men were told to “go West and seek rest” and record their experience in writing (qtd. in Will par. 1). This shows that the Rest Cure was sexist in nature. If Charlotte Perkins Gilman had been a man, perhaps she would have had a better experience with Weir Mitchell.
Sexism is not the only thing that was wrong with Weir Mitchell’s Rest Cure. Especially when it was used to treat what Victorian physicians called neurasthenia, as that may have been an incorrect diagnosis to begin with. According to Sharpe and Wessely, what was then called neurasthenia, today would likely be diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome (par. 2). This is an important distinction because excessive rest, a foundational aspect of the Rest Cure, actually can make some of the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, such as loss of strength and fatigue, worse (Sharpe and Wessely par. 4).
The effects of prolonged inactivity have been proven to be detrimental and long lasting, even on study participants who were originally healthy (Sharpe and Wessely par. 4). For patients who had depression, the Rest Cure would have had even larger consequences. Studies have found even light physical activity can reduce symptoms of depression (Thiel par. 1), while another study found that “individuals who were not active were twice as likely to have symptoms of depression when compared to those who exercised regularly” (qtd. in Thiel par. 4). With that in mind it is easy to see how the Rest Cure’s prescription of 24 hours of bed rest a day for weeks at a time would likely had a very negative effect on patients with depression. Also of relevance, researchers found that not only did physical activity reduce depressive symptoms in their participants, but participants who also experienced anxiety found that those symptoms were reduced as well (Thiel par. 11).
Five years after Charlotte Perkins Gilman recovered from the Rest Cure, her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was published. In that story she depicted a woman, the Narrator, who was treated very similarly to how Gilman was treated except the Narrator did not recover (Hume par. 2). Gilman sent a copy of “The Yellow Wallpaper” to Weir Mitchell himself, but he never acknowledged it. However, Gilman said that she knew of at least one woman who was saved from the Rest Cure when her family read “The Yellow Wallpaper” and decided to demand she be let back out into everyday life. The woman then recovered (“Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper” pars. 7-8).
Writing can be a very powerful thing. When someone is too stubborn to hear what is spoken, stories can be used to silently persuade. Events can be recorded so that those in the future can learn from the past. Messages can be transcribed with an elegancy that spoken word struggles to capture. But, that is not all that writing can do. Writing can also be very therapeutic in nature (Bolton et al. 1), and as such, can be used as a treatment for various mental disorders. Bolton defines therapeutic writing as “client expressive and reflective writing” (8), this is notable because it emphasizes that writing alone is not necessarily therapeutic, but when the type of writing done requires the patient to do some self-introspection, such as in a journal entry, it is especially therapeutic. One example of writing being used as a psychological treatment is Structured Writing Therapy, which comes from the Interapy Program. The Interapy Program is used in treating posttraumatic stress and comorbid symptoms of depression and has also demonstrated effectiveness in the treatment of anxiety and somatization. (Van Emmerik, et al 94)
Van Emmerik, et al. also found Structured Writing Therapy to be a promising alternative treatment for lowering state anxiety in clients with Acute Stress Disorder, and in the future, could be used as opposed to the more common treatment for Acute Stress Disorder, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (1). Similar to Structured Writing Therapy is Poetry Therapy, which is a form of Expressive Art Therapy, and incorporates poetry and writing as coping techniques for clients with problems in living (Rindge 1).