Reflections on "An Angel at My Table" - Janet Frame

Following learning about the works of Rosenhan and how easy it is to misdiagnose someone as mentally ill, I found it an easy and logical choice to read this book which reflects on the life and travels of a writer, Janet Frame, who was misdiagnosed in New Zealand as Schizophrenic which cost her several years in asylums. She explores and described in great details her travels on a Literature grant and there is an underlying tone of the importance of how experience shapes us as people.

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Firstly, reading volume one, which in great detail, is an exploration of her childhood and schooling. Particularly interesting, I find is her reference to English Literature as a device to ascertain knowledge of a human behaviour:

I felt to know the winds of the world were blowing, to gain knowledge of human behaviour, of the human mind, I had only to study the world's poetry and fiction.

Frame finds means of Psychology in Literature, which for me, really spotlights how applicable to everyday life and fundamental Psychology is. Frame speaks of being 'overwhelmed with the flood of new information about the Mind, the Soul and the Young Delinquent, where I had only recently learned that there is such creature as The Child.' 

Particularly interesting to me (as very interested in dream research), is Frame's reference to the phallic quality of dreams & their significance. She spoke of T.S Elliot The Golden Bough, which she speaks highly of (but I'm yet to read myself). Similarly, she speaks of writing poems through her 'Freudian lens'. When thinking about how my subjects intertwine & in particular relate to Psychology, I'm quick to make the association to English literature. However, I usually think that Literature helps me to think about Psychology, I have not before appreciated that Psychology has a role in helping me in writing. So in this way, Frame has enabled me to appreciate Psychology from a different angle & through the eyes of an English student.

From a clinical psychology point of view, I was given an insight, from the eyes of a patient, how important it is to treat the patient as a human being. This was shown in Frame's reflections on being treated as if less of a person: 'When my sister's friends asked, 'how is she?' As if an archaeological find stood before them and they were applying with eyes, heart, mind, a 'carbon' test to name, date and place me - and if only I had a place! Frame invites us to see the thoughts of someone who is taken into an asylum and how people's tendency to make her "become assistant 3rd person or even personless" is demeaning and can do more harm than goo as she states: "3rd person people are often thrust into a passive mood". 

Seeing a Psychiatrist through the eyes of Frame as she expresses what qualities made her feel more at ease with them and have more respect with them, is something a found incredibly insightful and a useful lesson. She states: 'Dr Portion was a qualified Psychiatrist , he may have superimposed life upon psychiatry not psychiatry upon the life.' This highlights how important epistemological and personal reflexivity, not only in studies, but as a practicing clinician outside the laboratory as this can affect to what extent a patient will open up to you.
Frame described being diagnosed with Schizophrenia as: "as if I had emerged from a chrysalis, the natural human state, into another kind of creature, and even if there were parts of me that were familiar to human beings, my gradual deterioration would lead me further and further away..." Refreshingly, she spotlights the advantageous aspects of a mental illness in a professional career and it's contributions to imagination. She believes that being falsely diagnosed with Schizophrenia at the expense of 7 years in a mental institute draws attention to it as: "Ophelia's Syndrome" and how it "allows a writer explore varieties of otherwise unspoken feelings, thoughts and language". 

As the book comes to an end, she says: "the unalterable human composition that is the true bases of fiction...", which reminds me why I like to be avid reader as a Psychology student. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfMh-fRSH5E Here is the link to the trailer of the film that was made so that you can get a feel for the woman who felt by reading this book, with so much attention to detail, I know quite well.