Chapters 1 & 2 Summary and Analysis

Susanna Kaysen offers a personal memoir regarding her diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and subsequent confinement at McLean Hospital. After attempting suicide, Kaysen voluntarily commits herself and is assigned to a medium-security psychiatric ward. Over the next eighteen months, she receives drugs, therapy, and analysis. During her period of commitment, she meets several other young women, who are also receiving various forms of treatment for disparate mental illnesses. Toward the end of her stay Kaysen receives a marriage proposal, which she accepts. The memoir concludes with a retrospective reevaluation of the time period and topics presented.

Chapter 1 begins with a reproduction of a form titled "Case Record Folder"—a summarization sheet for Kaysen's admission to McLean Hospital. Kaysen was admitted during April 1967, for a diagnosis of Borderline Personality; additionally, the report indicates a 1965, hospital admission at another facility where...