How can we diagnose the malady of the doctor's wife from the story

How can we diagnose the malady of the doctor’s wife from the story The Yellow Wallpaper?

Ans.

Even a casual reading of the story will make it clear that the woman in the story is not quite normal and is hypersensitive to her surrounding. The doctor’s both her husband and her brother take it to be nothing serious but ‘temporary nervous depression’ – a slight hysterical tendency’. The doctors’ advice is to shun all mental work – especially ‘writing’ – and take tonies, journeys and exercise. The nervous trouble which the woman undergoes are ‘dreadfully depressing. She has even to put in great effort just to dress, to entertain or to do any such ordinary day to day thing’s She gets easily tired. She did not do a thing yet was she tired. She cries at nothing, and cry most of the time. All these symptoms point to neurosis or psychoneurosis. The essential features of psychoneurosis are that they are the outcome of emotional stresses, conflicts and frustrations. They are not physical disorders. No wonder that the doctors do not find anything wrong with her body. Psychoneurotic symptoms are extremely varied. Ranging from repeated psychological complaints – anxiety, de pressed spirits, inability to take decision, memory disturbance, irrational fears, insomnia inability to enjoy social relations to physical symptoms – fatigue, headaches, persistent tension, gastronomic disturbance, palpitation, pains, fluctuation in body temperature etc. Although the symptoms which go under the collective name of psychoneurosis are numerous, the four types are generally recognized – hysteria, neurasthenia, anxiety state and psychasthenia. Broadly speaking Hysteria is characterized by psychogenic paralysis of the limbs, deaf ness, blindness etc. Neurasthenia, as the name suggests, is an exhaustion reaction. Those suffering from this disorder complain of a lack of energy, diminished power of concentration, irritability, chronic mental and physical fatigue etc. Anxiety states are marked by emotional overreaction. The symptoms are usually tension, general apprehension, feelings of insecurity, restlessness, insomnia, palpitation, vague fears concerning impending calamity etc. Psychasthenia includes obsessive compulsive reaction and phobias.

From this brief account of psychoneurosis it becomes fairly evident that the symptoms of the woman in question is of the neurasthenic type of psychoneurosis. One guiding symptom of the neurasthenic patient is fatigue. He or she is tired not due to overexertion but because of it being a psychological phenomenon. We see that the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper has nothing to do, her husband’s sister Jennie looks after everything, the baby is looked after by Mary and she has ample physical rest; yet she feels so tired that even to dress seems to her to be an uphill task.

There are psychological tests to form a more or less definitive idea about the nature of the mental state of the patient. The personality tests are of two types-projective or questionnaire type. Two examples of the projective test are the thematic Apperception Test and the Rorschach Test. The former consists of a series of pictures depicting a variety of dramatic scenes. With each picture shown to the patient he or she is to make up a story about the scene. The story told indirectly express the patient’s own strivings, wishes, and fears. In the Rorschach Test ink blots on cards are used and the patient is asked what they look like or what they could be. The adherers of this test claim that when scored and interpreted they give an X-ray picture of the patient’s basic personality.

We can now safely surmise that had the husband of the woman been a psychiatrist as well, he could have fathomed the inmost recesses of his wife’s mind from her wall paper gazing. which could have served as a Thematic Apperception Test.