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279170

Assembling the Fractured Self: A Jungian Reading of Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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Abstract

This paper seeks to employ some of Carl Jung's theories to offer a re-reading of the treatment Susanna Kaysen receives as a patient diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in McLean Psychiatric Hospital, from 1967 to 1969; an experience she recounts in her memoir Girl, Interrupted (1993). Kaysen's self-portrait is reflected in the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's work “Girl Interrupted at Her Music", which depicts a young woman interrupted by an older gentleman while studying/playing music. Kaysen is burdened with a fractured self, and accordingly, she feels that the course of her life has been interrupted. A recourse to Jung's psychotherapeutic model can thus be embraced as an effective approach that helps mitigate the feelings of fragmentation, despair and desolation that afflict her during the course of her treatment. Of all the experiences Kaysen recounts in her memoir, her meetings with the doctor are the ones she denigrates the most. Throughout the narrative, she repeatedly repudiates them, recalling them each time in a derisive tone. It is particularly in this regard that Jungian psychotherapy is employed as a counterforce that helps render her voice audible, and consequently expedite the process of homogenizing her fractured self.

DOI

10.21608/tjhss.2022.279170

Keywords

Jung, borderline personality disorder, individuation, psychotherapy, Fragmentation

Authors

First Name

Jaidaa

Last Name

Hamada

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University

Email

jhamada79@gmail.com

City

Alexandria

Orcid

-

Volume

3

Article Issue

4

Related Issue

37311

Issue Date

2022-10-01

Receive Date

2022-08-09

Publish Date

2022-10-01

Page Start

199

Page End

224

Print ISSN

2636-4239

Online ISSN

2636-4247

Link

https://tjhss.journals.ekb.eg/article_279170.html

Detail API

https://tjhss.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=279170

Order

279,170

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,087

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Transcultural Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Publication Link

https://tjhss.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Assembling the Fractured Self: A Jungian Reading of Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023