I never promised you a rose garden (Roman)

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Book cover of the novel (2012)

I never promised you a rose garden (subtitle: Report of a Cure ) is an autobiographical novel by the author Joanne Greenberg . She published the novel in 1964 under the pen name Hannah Green . The original English title is I Never Promised You a Rose Garden .

The author herself was diagnosed with schizophrenia in a mental hospital. The novel has strong autobiographical features. Greenberg himself says the story is neither a case report nor a study, but rather a "hymn to reality".

The novel developed into a million dollar bestseller in the USA within a few years and was translated into many languages.

content

characters

The most important figures are:

  • Deborah Blau, the main youthful character of the novel
  • Jacob and Esther Blau, Deborah's parents
  • Miss Dr. Fried, doctor treating the main character (real role model: see section below)
  • Yr , the fantasy world of Deborah with its own language (Yri). Relevant figures and appearances of Yrs are:
    • Anterrabae ("ever falling" god with hair like fire)
    • Lactamaeon (god in the form of an eagle)
    • Idat (gender-changing "hypocrite")
    • the choir (internalized accusations from the outside world)
    • the censor (stands between Yr and the outside world)
    • In Yr, Deborah herself is often called "bird creatures", as this is her most common appearance there.
    • Dr. Fried later means “Furii” in Yr, which means “fire finger”. Deborah felt Dr. Fried's arm once had a discomfort from heat and burn.
    • the hell
    • the horror moor
  • Carla, girlfriend of Deborah

Also to be mentioned are:

  • "The secret first wife of Edward VIII , the abdicated King of England", fellow patient
  • Miss Coral, Helen, Sylvia, Lee Miller, Doris Rivera and other fellow patients

action

Sixteen year old Deborah Blau suffers from a strange illness. It seems as if an in-between world that Deborah calls "Yr" has slipped between her and the rest of the environment. Deborah also suffers from severe perception disorders, also of an optical nature . Her parents, Esther and Jakob, are recommended after Deborah attempted suicide that they be sent to a mental hospital for treatment. Both hesitate, fearing that Deborah would be stigmatized and the family's reputation would be damaged. They still go to the clinic to have their daughter admitted there. The well-known and famous doctor Dr. Despite a busy schedule, Fried decides to treat Deborah.

As the story progresses, Deborah meets the other patients in the house. The reader is shown how human the patients living there are and can be despite the seemingly completely opposite surface. The main character ends up on the violent ward D after harming himself. She experiences that the patients housed there are just as human despite their seizures. Over time, she becomes acquainted with her fellow patients. An example is Carla, with whom she will later carry out activities outside the clinic. Another example is Miss Coral from Station D. She turns out to be an old-language friend who shares her knowledge with Deborah.

There is also talk of Doris Rivera, a patient who “managed” to get better. But when she relapses in the harsh reality outside and is admitted again, Deborah's idea of ​​recovery ("the little maybe") gets a strong damper for a certain time. From this and other examples she understands that setbacks are part of healing and progress.

The book clearly describes the way psychiatric patients think and how they deal with their situation. Even more unpleasant facts are shown, such as self-harm, physical violence or packing in the so-called cold pack to vent after a seizure. The personal differences between the clinic staff and the doctors, especially with regard to the way they treat patients, are also clear.

During the treatment with Dr. Fried wins Deborah's trust. Both work together with and on the story, the current situation and the feelings of the patient. Dr. Over time, Fried learns of the existence of the fantasy world Yr, which is veiled by the censor. It turns out that previous rape-like urethral surgery (to remove cancer) and anti-Semitic discrimination at a summer camp forced her to retreat into fantasy. The high demands and influences of the parents are also part of the complex. More phenomena and delusions are revealed piece by piece over the course of many months.

Dr. Fried tries not to force anything on Deborah as much as possible; instead, she wants to enable her to ultimately decide for or against Yr. Dr. Fried believes that Deborah's illness is a struggle for her health and a way of dealing with a world that is chaotic for her. During treatment, the doctor always tries to address the healthy parts of Deborah through human sympathy. The patient slowly learns, accompanied by some serious setbacks, to withstand reality more and more. That in ordinary reality it is by no means always fair and honest, Dr. Fried explains:

“'Listen,' said Furii, ' I didn't promise you a rose garden . I never promised you perfect justice ... '"

- eponymous sentence Dr. Frieds

Furthermore, the beings from the fantasy world defend themselves against the influence of "Furiis". They always try to convince Deborah - in relation to "normal people":

"You are not one of them."

- Frequent quote from Yr

As a subplot, the situation of her parents is repeatedly discussed in excerpts. For the first time, Deborah's sister Suzy was hiding the truth of her sister's absence. Doubts are also presented as to whether treatment in psychiatry is really right or not. Parents are also afraid of possible stigma.

Towards the end, Deborah even manages to catch up on her school leaving certificate. She proudly carries the school books around to study, knowing what they mean. Shortly after she relapsed again, she faced a choice between normal people (she calls them “Newtonians” for science) or Yr. Her maturation so far and an inner confrontation with the beings of Yr move her to turn her back on Yr forever through her own decision and to live in reality.

background

The author Greenberg herself was treated for schizophrenia at the Chestnut Lodge facility in Rockville, Maryland (USA) by Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (former wife and analyst Erich Fromms ) at the age of sixteen .

The novel refers to the German ancestry, the slight accent, the small body size and other peculiarities of the real role model of “Dr. Fried ”or“ Furii ”alluded to. The treatment method used no longer corresponds entirely to the classic psychoanalysis according to Sigmund Freud , but rather a further development ( intensive psychotherapy ; see also neopsychoanalysis ).

Schizophrenic patients were considered to be either not or hardly treatable. With her approach to intensive psychotherapy, Fromm-Reichmann was considered a pioneer in this area.

Frieda Fromm-Reichmann decided to publish the recovery story from her own perspective in book form. However, their scientific work took too much time and it never came back. Nevertheless, she commented on Greenberg's report with words of praise - and with reference to the exact formulation of the eponymous sentence with the rose garden. It should be noted that this report served as a raw version of the novel. Fromm-Reichmann died in 1957, a few years before Greenberg began writing the actual novel in 1961.

In a 1981 article in the New York Times , psychiatrists criticized the diagnosis of schizophrenia. In 1980, a tightening of the criteria for diagnosing schizophrenia was stipulated in the DSM- III diagnostic manual. According to these newer criteria, according to the newspaper article, the fictional character Deborah would have been more likely to suffer from a somatoform disorder ; their symptoms may suggest a different diagnosis. The newspaper article refers to a study which examined the characters in the novel with the diagnosis of schizophrenia in more detail in the light of the tightening of the DSM diagnostic criteria. This re-diagnosis of the figures in the study was also criticized on their part. Together with Deborah from the Rosengarten novel, the following other works were examined in the said study - according to the newspaper article:

Others

One of the illustrations of Satan (falling here) from Milton's Paradise Lost . (Engraving by Gustave Doré )
  • Towards the end, the “falling god” Anterrabae turns out to be the Satan character from John Milton's poem Lost Paradise , which Deborah often saw as a child leafing through her grandfather's book and who had developed a life of its own in Yr.
  • In the process of writing, in December 1963, Greenberg corrected a person's name in the novel. After John F. Kennedy had been murdered shortly before , the figure of the "wife of the murdered ex-President of the United States" was changed to the "secret first wife of Edward VIII , the abdicated King of England". The attentive reader will notice a few passages where there is talk of a president's wife. These places were probably overlooked in the change.
  • The story of the novel was made into a film; see I never promised you a rose garden (film) . The film was released in 1977.
  • In 2004 the story appeared in the form of a play; see also I never promised you a rose garden (play) .
  • The title I Never Promised You a Rose Garden became a catchphrase in English and was also used by Joe South for the 1969 country song (I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden , which was interpreted by Lynn Anderson as an international hit .
  • Alberta Szalitza had analyzed Greenberg while Frieda Fromm-Reichmann was on vacation. She noticed that the Yri language was not entirely self-invented, but had influences from Armenian . Greenberg probably had such influences from friends of this parentage.
  • It is also worth mentioning that in his science fiction novel The Swarm , Frank Schätzing gave the deep sea organism a very similar name ( Yrr ) to the fantasy world Yr.

Book editions

  • I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Holt, New York 1964.
  • I never promised you a rose garden. Report of a cure . Translated from the American by Jürgen and Elisabeth Hilke and Ekkehard and Ursula Pohlmann. Radius, Stuttgart 1973; New edition 2012, ISBN 978-3-87173-931-6 .
  • I never promised you a rose garden . Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek near Hamburg 1978; New edition 2000, ISBN 978-3-499-22776-9 .

literature

  • Gail Hornstein: To Redeem One Person Is To Redeem The World: A Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann . Free Press, 2002.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Green, 1978: book back and author information inside.
  2. ↑ Page to the book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden on the author's website. Section Author's Notes . Retrieved February 14, 2018.
  3. ↑ GA Hornstein, 2002: p. 346 ff (Rose Garden)
  4. ↑ Green, 1978: p. 115 (chapter 15): "Deborah had never actually seen the censor because he was not from one of the two worlds, but rather participated in both."
  5. ↑ Green, 1978: event on p. 90 (chapter 12) and word usage on p. 96 (chapter 13): “Furii or fire finger was the new Yri name for her doctor; [...] "
  6. ↑ Green, 1978: p. 96 (Chapter 13). Not in italics in the original.
  7. ↑ Green, 1978: for example on p. 47 (chapter 6), to the decisive conclusion on p. 235 f (chapter 29).
  8. ^ Entry by Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda in the biographical archive of psychiatry. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  9. ↑ see also: Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda: Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy. Chicago University Press, Chicago 1950. Source: Citation in the accompanying article in the American Journal of Psychiatry , which is also used in this article.
  10. ↑ Article Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, 1889–1957. (Images in Psychiatry) in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Volume 155, Issue 1, January 1998, pp. 123-123. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  11. ^ Frieda Fromm-Reichmann by Susanne K. Hochmann, section Frieda Fromm-Reichmann: her work, last paragraph. Source there: Hilde Bruch , 1982 . Note the note on citability; here, however, acceptable in this context, since the actual source is given in the text there. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  12. ^ GA Hornstein, 2002: p. 348 (Rose Garden)
  13. ↑ Article Schizophrenia In Popular Books: A Study Finds Too Much Hope from the New York Times, February 17, 1981. Author: Dava Sobel. Retrieved February 14, 2018.
  14. ^ The newspaper article refers to: North C, Cadoret R. Diagnostic Discrepancy in Personal Accounts of Patients With “Schizophrenia” . Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1981; 38 (2): 133-137. doi: 10.1001 / archpsyc.1981.01780270019001 ( online . Accessed February 14, 2018.)
  15. ^ GA Hornstein, 2002: p. 370f (Rose Garden)
  16. ↑ Cadoret RJ, North CS. Diagnostic Discrepancies: A Reply to North and Cadoret-Reply . Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1982; 39 (1): 112-113. doi: 10.1001 / archpsyc.1982.04290010084016 . ( online . Accessed February 14, 2018.)
  17. ↑ Book Review Mark Vonnegut: Eden Express by Brigitte Helbling for Litmag. Retrieved February 14, 2018.
  18. ↑ Green, 1978: p. 233 (last chapter 29): “[…] It was Milton's Paradise Lost ; the shining god of their early imagination, who fell incessantly in the fire, was none other than Milton's Satan. She had flipped through the pictures hundreds of times on her visits to Grandfather's house. […] Not even Anterrabae belonged to her. ”Emphasis also in the original.
  19. ↑ GA Hornstein, 2002: p. 352 (Rose Garden)
  20. ↑ Svenja Hein, Dominik Gross, Jean-Philippe Ernst: American psychiatry history in the mirror of the novel "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" by Joanne Greenberg. In: Dominik Gross, Stephanie Kaiser (Hrsg.): Medical history in spotlights. Contributions of the "Rheinischer Kreis der Medizinhistoriker" . kassel university press, Kassel 2011, ISBN 978-3-86219-000-3 , p. 323.
  21. ^ GA Hornstein, 2002: p. 425f ( Notes for Chapter 9 and 10, Note 21): "Alberta Szalitza, who had seen Joanne in a series of strikingly unsuccessful sessions during Frieda's vacation, was far less taken with Greenberg's creativity. She insisted to colleagues that Irian H. Yri] wasn't really a language, just “a poor set-up of some words that were similar to Armenian” that Greenberg had put together from having had Armenian friends. [...] "