Carl Solomon's Report From the Asylum
2
Shock therapy What is shock therapy? Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Insulin shock therapy or insulin coma therapy (ICT) was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks Carl Solomon’s ‘Report from the Asylum’ (1950) Carl Solomon ( 1928 – 1993) was an American writer. In his youth, he was voluntarily institutionalized at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New York State. At the Hospital, he underwent shock- therapy. Upon being strapped into my insulin bed, I would at once break off my usual stream of puns and hysterical chatter. I would stare at the bulge I made beneath the canvas restraining sheet, and my body, insulin-packed, would become to me an enormous concrete pun with infinite levels of association, and thereby a means of surmounting association with things, much as the verbal puns had surmounted the meaning of words.... Each coma is utterly incomparable to that of the previous day. Lacking a time-sense and inhabiting all of these universes at one and the same time, my condition was one of omnipresence of being everywhere at no time… Invariably, I emerged from the comas bawling like an infant and flapping my arms crazily (after they had been unfastened), screaming ‘Help!’ Task:
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Transcript of Carl Solomon's Report From the Asylum
Shock therapy
What is shock therapy?
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect.
Insulin shock therapy or insulin coma therapy (ICT) was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks
Carl Solomon’s ‘Report from the Asylum’ (1950)
Carl Solomon (1928 – 1993) was an American writer. In his youth, he was voluntarily institutionalized at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New York State. At the Hospital, he underwent shock-therapy.
Upon being strapped into my insulin bed, I would at once break off my usual stream of puns and hysterical chatter. I would stare at the bulge I made beneath the canvas restraining sheet, and my body, insulin-packed, would become to me an enormous concrete pun with infinite levels of association, and thereby a means of surmounting association with things, much as the verbal puns had surmounted the meaning of words....
Each coma is utterly incomparable to that of the previous day. Lacking a time-sense and inhabiting all of these universes at one and the same time, my condition was one of omnipresence of being everywhere at no time…
Invariably, I emerged from the comas bawling like an infant and flapping my arms crazily (after they had been unfastened), screaming ‘Help!’
Task:
1. Underline key words or phrases in Solomon’s writing above.2. What adjectives can you think of to describe his experience?3. Using your work from tasks 1 and 2, write a poem in pairs about
Carl Solomon’s experience. You can choose to write it in the first person or the third person. Think about sound effects and incorporating different voices (e.g. the nurses).
