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- Title
The modern-day "Rest Cure": "The yellow Wallpaper" and underrepresentation in clinical research.
- Authors
Villar, Camille Francesca
- Abstract
Gothic literature—a genre brimming with madness, supernaturalism, and psychological terror—offers innumerable case studies potentially representing how psychiatric patients perceive their treatment from healthcare professionals. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's famous 1892 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" offers a poignant example of this through its fictional narrator, a diarist many interpret to be suffering from postpartum depression. The fiction here does not stray far from reality: Gilman orchestrated her diarist's experience to mirror her own, as both real author and fictional character suffocated from a melancholy only made worse by their physicians' insistence on following the "Rest Cure." While this instruction to cease all work and activity was a prevalent depression treatment at the time, Gilman, through "The Yellow Wallpaper," reveals how the intervention ultimately harmed more than helped because it overlooked her—and, by extension, her fictional diarist's— unique needs and identities. Today, while the ineffective Rest Cure no longer exists, applying observations from "The Yellow Wallpaper" to clinical research calls attention to underrepresentation in treatment development, a costly problem that could be mitigated by mindful incorporation of intersectionality theory into study designs.
- Subjects
GILMAN, Charlotte Perkins, 1860-1935; MEDICAL research; WALLPAPER; PEOPLE with mental illness; POSTPARTUM depression; MEDICAL personnel
- Publication
Philosophy, Ethics & Humanities in Medicine, 2024, Vol 19, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
1747-5341
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1186/s13010-024-00158-8