by Alex Beam
CHAPTER 1 A VISIT TO THE MUSEUM OF THE CURES
The definitive source for accurate information on McLean history is Silvia Sutton’s Crossroads in Psychiatry: A History of the McLean Hospital, published in 1986 by the American Psychiatric Press. It is engagingly written and extremely informative. Sutton’s research backstops much of my writing about the early years of the hospital. I owe a great debt to Sutton’s official history and to three general histories of psychiatry that I consulted frequently: Edward Shorter’s A History of Psychiatry (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997); Albert Deutsch’s The Mentally Ill in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949); and The History of Psychiatry, by Franz G. Alexander and Sheldon Selesnick (New York: Harper and Row, 1966).
Rob Perkins’s memoir is Talking to Angels (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996). My information about the Taylor family comes from press clips (see the Notes on Sources for Chapter 10) and my interviews. The primary accounts of Robert Lowell’s stays at McLean are the biographies by Ian Hamilton (Robert Lowell [New York: Random House, 1982]) and Paul Mariani (Lost Puritan (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1994). Sylvia Nasar’s biography of John Forbes Nash, A Beautiful Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998) has a chapter on his stay at McLean. Ray Charles discusses his arrest and experiences at McLean in his autobiography Brother Ray (New York: Dial Press, 1978). Copies of the Olmsted letters are in the McLean archives and are included in The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981-1992). The famous quote “... confound them!” is to be found in Laura Wood Roper’s biography FLO (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).
CHAPTER 2 BY THE BEST PEOPLE, FOR THE BEST PEOPLE
This chapter relies heavily on Sutton and on Nina Little’s Early Years of the McLean Hospital (Boston: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, 1972). The William Folsom diaries appear in Little’s book. Charles Beveridge and David Schuyler describe the Olmsted-Vaux asylum work in the introduction to Creating Central Park, volume 3 of The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted.
CHAPTER 3 THE MAYFLOWER SCREWBALLS
The material on Emerson and on Jones Very comes from John McAleer’s biography of Emerson (Ralph Waldo Emerson: Days of Encounter [Boston: Little, Brown, 1984]), which has a chapter on Very, and from Edwin Gittleman’s biography of Very, Jones Very: The Effective Years (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967).
A family member shared John Warren’s medical record with me. Douglas Starr published a fascinating account of the ether controversy in the Boston Globe, November 26, 2000. On this subject, I also consulted Richard Patterson’s “Dr. Charles Thomas Jackson’s Aphasia,” Journal of Medical Biography, 1997. Details on the Hooper and Adams families are available in Otto Friedrich’s Clover (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979) and in Ernest Samuels’s Henry Adams (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1989).
My account of William James’s possible McLean sojourn derives from the cited interviews and from Linda Simon’s Genuine Reality: A Life of William James (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1998).
CHAPTER 4 THE COUNTRY CLUBBERS
Henry Hurd’s article was published in the April 1898 issue of the American Journal of Insanity; Dr. Thomas Bond gave me his grandfather’s unpublished memoir, “The Private World of McLean Hospital.”
There is a very useful Stanley McCormick Archive at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in Madison, containing many of his medical records. T.C. Boyle’s novel Riven Rock (New York: Viking, 1998) is a fictionalized version of Stanley’s plight. Armond Fields very generously shared his unpublished manuscript about Katharine McCormick, and MIT professor Margery Resnick also gave me her work on Katharine. Some McCormick family anecdotes come from Gilbert Harrison’s A Timeless Affair: The Life of Anita Blaine McCormick (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), a biography of Stanley’s philanthropically minded sister. The description of the art room and of “Julia Bowen’s” life are in the McLean archives. The Myerson-Boyle paper is in the McLean archives. The daughter of “Priscilla Jenkins” shared her mother’s McLean case file with me.
CHAPTER 5 THE SEARCH FOR THE CURE
A key text on this subject is Elliot Valenstein’s 1986 book Great and Desperate Cures (New York: Basic Books).The description of Henry Cotton’s work comes from the Edward Shorter history. The Talbott-Tillotson paper on hypothermia was published in the April 1941 issue of Diseases of the Nervous System. Freud’s use of electroshock is reported in the Alexander and Selesnick history. “Total push” was described by Tillotson and Myerson in “Theory and Principles of the ‘Total Push’ Method in the Treatment of Chronic Schizophrenia,” American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1931. Frank W. Kimball’s “Hope for Tired Minds” appeared in the December 1946 and January 1947 issues of Hygeia: The Health Magazine.
Walter Freeman’s hijinks are well documented in Valenstein. The complete history of lobotomies at McLean is Jack Pressman’s Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
CHAPTER 6 THE TALK CURE: FREUD AND MAN AT MCLEAN
Sutton discusses Boston’s belated acceptance of Freud in her book. The story of James J. Putnam, Stanley Hall, and Freud’s Clark University lectures is recounted in Paul Roazen’s Freud and His Followers (New York: Knopf, 1975) and also in Ronald Clark’s Freud: The Man and the Cause (New York: Random House, 1980).
There are two key sources for the tale of Dr. Horace Frink: Silas L. Warner’s “Freud’s Analysis of Horace Frink, M.D.: A Previously Unexplained Therapeutic Disaster,” Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 1994, and Lavinia Edmunds’s “His Master’s Choice,” Johns Hopkins Magazine, April 1988. This article drew upon an archive donated to Johns Hopkins by Dr. Frink’s daughter, Helen Frink Kraft, who confirmed a few details of her father’s life in a letter to me.
The best short description of Scofield Thayer’s life was written by Diane Ducharme, curator of Yale’s Dial/Scofield Thayer Collection, and appears on the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Web site (w w w. library.yale.edu.beinecke). Nicholas Joost’s 1964 book Scofield Thayer and the Dial (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press), is also a valuable source. All documents and correspondence quoted here are from the Yale collection.
Carl Liebman’s story is recounted, anonymously, in Dr. David Lynn’s “Freud’s Analysis of A.B., a Psychotic Man, 1925-1930,” Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 1993. Most of the letters from Freud, Pfister, and others, first appeared in Dr. Lynn’s article. McLean doctors shared portions of Liebman’s record with me.
CHAPTER 7 WELCOME TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
As noted, Sutton’s official history recounts the Tillotson-Salot story and also gives examples of Franklin Wood’s parsimoniousness. On the personality of Dr. Alfred Stanton, my sources are his two surviving children and the many doctors quoted here who still remember him. Willis Bower’s work is mentioned in Edward Shorter’s history. Cristina Heilner granted me permission to quote from her brother’s musical, Close to Home.
The suicide statistics come from Rose Coser’s book Training in Ambiguity (New York: The Free Press, 1979) and also from “Some Notes on Thirty Years of Suicide at McLean Hospital,” a paper presented at the hospital by Dr. George B. Lawson. Dr. Merton Kahne’s analyses were published as “Suicides in Mental Hospitals: A Study of the Effects of Personnel and Patient Turnover,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, September 1968, and in “Suicide among Patients in Mental Hospitals: A Study of the Psychiatrists Who Conducted Their Psychotherapy,” Psychiatry, February 1968.
The famous schizophrenia study undertaken by Dr. Alfred Stanton and Dr. John Gunderson, among others, was published as “Effects of Psychotherapy,” Schizophrenia Bulletin, vol. 10, no. 4, 1984.
CHAPTER 8 THE MAD POETS’ SOCIETY
Diane Wood Middlebrook’s biography, Anne Sexton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991) is the definitive source for information on the poet. Sexton discussed her feelings about
Sylvia Plath in “The Barfly Ought To Sing,” an essay published in the fall 1966 edition of TriQuarterly.
Both the Hamilton and Mariani biographies describe Lowell’s stays at McLean. The Sarah Cotting anecdote is in Sarah Payne Stuart’s My First Cousin Once Removed (New York: HarperCollins, 1998). The Lowell letter to Elizabeth Bishop is from the Vassar College archive; the letter to Pound is from Yale’s Beinecke Library. Both are reprinted by permission of the Estate of Robert Lowell.
Several books discuss Sylvia Plath, her mental illness, and her stay at McLean: Anne Stevenson’s 1989 biography Bitter Fame (Boston: Houghton Mifflin), Paul Alexander’s Rough Magic (New York: Viking Penguin, 1991), Peter Davison’s Half-Remembered: A Personal History (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), Nancy H. Steiner’s A Closer Look at Ariel (New York: Harper’s Magazine Press, 1973), and Edward Butscher’s Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness (New York: Seabury Press, 1976). Quotes from Plath’s journal can be found in The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962, edited by Karen Kukil (New York: Anchor Books, 2000). Ruth Barnhouse’s letters are at the Sophia Smith Collection of Smith College and are used with permission.
The archive of the Anne Sexton poetry seminar is at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, and her daughter and executor, Linda Gray Sexton, kindly granted me access to it. The Anne Sexton poetry fragment is quoted with Linda’s permission. Robert Plunkett granted me permission to quote from his sister’s poetry.
CHAPTER 9 STAYING ON: THE ELDERS FROM PLANET UPHAM
The details of Louis Shaw’s life were pieced together from the interviews cited, from his Harvard reunion books, and from two memoirs: The Day It Rained Fish,” by Sidney Nichols Shurcliff (A.W. Shurcliff, 1991), and Trooper: True Stories from a Proud Tradition, by David Moran (Boston: Quinlan Press, 1986). Louis’s lengthy and revealing will is on file in Essex County, Massachusetts.
McLean doctors shared details of the stories of the Ziegel brothers, Frank Everett, and Joan Wilkinson. Ray Charles’s drug bust is described in his autobiography, in newspaper clips, and in Michael Lydon’s Ray Charles: Man and Music (New York: Riverhead, 1998).
CHAPTER 10 DIAGNOSIS: “HIPPIEPHRENIA”
Dr. Alan Stone’s comments on “hippiephrenia” appeared in the Summer 2000 issue of the Boston Review. In addition to the cited interviews, I also used the Time magazine cover story (March 1, 1971), a New York Times Magazine story (February 21, 1971), a long article by Timothy Crouse in Rolling Stone (February 18, 1971), and the Rolling Stone interview with James Taylor (September 6, 1979) to flesh out details of the Taylor family’s pursuits in the early 1970s. The song fragment is quoted with James Taylor’s permission.
Music therapist Paul Roberts shared his reports on his work at McLean with me.
CHAPTER 11 PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF
Walter Jackson Freeman’s book is Psychiatrist: Personalities and Patterns (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1968). The article by Charles Rich and Ferris Pitts appeared in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in August 1980. McLean doctors spoke to me about Doris Menzer-Benaron and Mark Altschule. There is a very interesting videotaped interview with Altschule in the Harvard Medical School’s Countway Library of Medicine.
McLean provided me with Dr. Harvey Shein’s curriculum vitae. Other biographical details came from interviews, primarily with his childhood friend John Livingstone. Shein and Stone published three major works on suicide: “Psychotherapy of the Hospitalized Suicidal Patient,” American Journal of Psychotherapy, vol. 22: 15-25, 1968; “Psychotherapy Designed To Detect and Treat Suicidal Potential,” American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1969; and “Monitoring and Treatment of Suicidal Potential within the Context of Psychotherapy,” Comprehensive Psychotherapy, January 1969. Shein’s paper on loneliness and isolation appeared in the American Journal of Psychotherapy, January 1974.
CHAPTER 12 LIFE GOES ON
There is no shortage of information on the parlous state of modern mental health. Two of my sources were Edward Shorter’s history of psychiatry and T.M. Lurhmann’s Of Two Minds (New York: Knopf, 2000), which provided the quote about McLean looking like London after the Blitz. Under Observation, by Dr. Alexander Vuckovic and Lisa Berger (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1994), gives excellent insights into the workings of McLean during the early 1990s. The catalog for the art auction is in the McLean archives.
Index
Adams, Clover
Adams, Henry
Adams, John
Adams, John Quincy
Adams family
“Adjustment reaction of adolescence,”
“An Adolescent Program Needed,”
Adolescent psychiatry
Adolescent treatment center
“Adolescent turmoil,”
Agassiz, Louis
Albert Lasker Award
Alcott, Bronson
Alfred Stanton Room
Almshouse
Altschule, Julia
Altschule, Mark
American Chemical Society
American Journal of Insanity
American Medical Association
American Notes (Dickens)
American Psychiatric Association
American Retirement Corporation
American Scholar
Ames, James Barr
Ames, Lois
Amory, Cleveland
Anesthesia
and electroshock therapy
and lobotomies
Anne Sexton and Her Kind
Antipsychotic drugs.
See also individual drugs
Apple record label
Appleton, William
Appleton Hall
Architecture, at McLean Hospital
Arlington Cottage
Arlington School
Arnold Arboretum
Arno’s
“Around and About McLean,”
Asher, Peter
Astral Weeks
Asylums
in Europe
See also individual asylums
Atlantic Monthly
Audubon Society
Austen Riggs sanitarium
Awful Rowing Towards God (Sexton)
Axelrod, Julius
Baez, Joan
Bagg, Robert
Baker, Charles
Baker, Newton D.
Balanced Budget Act
Ball, Margaret
Bands. See also Music therapy
Barnes, Albert
Barnhouse, Ruth Tiffany
and Plath, Sylvia
Barnstone, Aliki
Barrell, Joseph
Barrell estate
Bayliss, Jonathan
Beacon Hill
Beacon Hill Civic Association
Beard, Charles
Beatles, the
Beck, Jeff
Beck, T. Romeyn
Beebe family
“Behind the Screen: Poems from the Female Maximum Security Hall,”
Belknap Hall
Bell, Luther
The Bell Jar (Plath)
Belmont, Massachusetts
Belmont Conservation Commission
Bemis, William Otis
Berger, Lisa
Bergman, Stephen (pseud. Samuel Shem)
Berklee School of Music
Bernhard, Duke of Saxe Weimar-Eisenach
Beth Israel Hospital
Bicetre Asylum
Bidart, Frank
Bijur, Abraham
Bijur, Anjelika “Angie,”
Biltmore hotel
Bini, Lucio
Birth-control pill,
Bishop, Elizabeth
Bite treatments (mosquito, rat)
Blaine, Anita
Bleeding
Bleuler, Eugen
Blood injection treatments
Bloomingdale Asylum
Bonaparte, Joseph
Bond, Douglas
Bond, Earl
Bond, Thomas
Bonnard, Pierre
Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
Boston Evening Transcript
Boston Globe
Boston Lunatic Hospital
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Boston Psychoanalytic Institute
Boston Psychopathic Hospital
Boston and Albany railroad
Boston Real Paper
Boston Sunday Globe
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Tea Party
Boston University
Bowditch, Nathaniel Ingersoll
Bowditch Hall
“Bowen, Julia,”
Bower, Willis
Bowl, the
Boyle, Rosalie
Boyle, T. Coraghessan
BPD. See Borderline personality disorder
Brackett, Nathaniel, Jr.
Bragg, Terry
Brandeis University
Braque, Georges
Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane
Brill, Abraham
Broadmoor psychiatric prison
Brock, Alice
Broderick, Matthew
Bromberg, David
Brooks, Swepson
Brother Ray (Charles)
“Brown-eyed Girl,”
Brunswick, Ruth Mack
Bryn Mawr
Budson, Richard
Buffalo State Asylum
Bulfinch, Charles
Bunker Hill
Bureau of Vital Statistics
Burgholzli Psychiatric Clinic
Burke, Kenneth
Butler, John
Butler Hospital
Byrd, Richard
Calomel
Cambridge
Capp, Al
“Carolina Day,”
“Casey at the Bat” (Edward Scofield)
Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
Cerletti, Ugo
