The UTC Graduate School is pleased to announce that Brooke Pierson will present Master’s research titled, I Can Give You Something for That: Exploring the Medical Paradigm in Mental Health Through Contemporary American Literature on 10/17/2024 at 3:00 PM in Lupton #372. Everyone is invited to attend.
English
Chair: Christopher J. Stuart
Co-Chair:
Abstract:
In this paper, I analyze two contemporary fiction novels, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell through the lens of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Through her satirical representation of modern psychiatric practices, Moshfegh critiques the limitations of modern diagnostic psychiatry by demonstrating how it can be exploited and highlights how the DSM diagnostic criteria is insufficient when it comes to separating normal emotional disturbances from pathological conditions. Moshfegh suggests that instead of seeking asylum from pain and normal emotional disturbances, we should remind ourselves that happiness and pain exist in harmony; that pain is a part of life. In My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell suggests the DSM-5 is not only sufficient, but also imperative to understanding traumatic experiences and the mental disorders which arise from them, such as PTSD. I argue that Russell utilizes her knowledge of modern psychiatric practices and the DSM in order to demonstrate that Vanessa’s perspective is self-protective delusion. Russell encourages her readers to look to other perspectives such as the DSM, in order to act as a good therapist and see that it is the very things Vanessa fights against that will allow for her to process the reality of her situation and begin to heal.