Dr. Lindemann, Massachusetts General Hospital
September 1953
I diagnosed her
with adolescent nervous illness,
not the black smudge of mental disease—
perhaps I was wrong?
Miss Plath doesn’t take to the ward.
Like a child in after-school detention,
it’s as though she’d rather be set on fire
than retained here. She should animate,
not vegetate, at this stage of recovery.
What’s wrong with her?
In group, I expose her to patients
who have never approached the door
marked “normal.” I had hoped Miss Plath
would find gratitude, realize that her situation
is not so dire. But she retires further into herself.
I have done this all wrong.
I want to help her get well.
I believe that I may be
the wrong doctor for Sylvia.
But wrong as I am,
will anyone be right?
Sylvia was examined by Olive Higgins Prouty’s psychiatrist, Dr. Donald McPherson, and by Dr. Erich Lindemann, the head of Massachusetts General Hospital’s psychiatric wing. Then at McLean Hospital, a part of the Massachusetts General system (McLean was considered at the time to be one of the country’s best mental facilities), Sylvia was cared for by Dr. Ruth Beuscher. Sylvia was at Massachusetts General from September 3, 1953, until no later than September 28, 1953. The patients were segregated strictly by gender and no other criteria, so many of the residents surrounding Sylvia were extremely mentally ill.