Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen’s 1993, Girl, Interrupted, is a memoir that explores Kaysen’s time as a teenage psychiatric patient in McLean Hospital in the late 1960s. Kaysen explores the murky definitions of mental health and illness, as she recounters her experience of being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and makes compelling arguments about the subjective nature of personality, behavior, and disorder. Girl, Interrupted is a bestselling book and was adapted into the 1999 film starring Winona Ryder. Kaysen’s memoir is credited with contributing to the discourse about mental health in the US, and for helping to decrease the stigma associated with mental illness. This SuperSummary guide is based on the Kindle edition of this book. The reader should be aware that this study guide includes subject matter including self-harm, institutionalization, and suicide.

Summary

In the first chapters of Girl, Interrupted Kaysen posits that people can experience “parallel universes”, or mental states, some of which are judged as disordered and requiring treatment. She recalls her brief appointment with her doctor, during which he forcefully persuades her to admit herself to McLean Hospital for mental treatment. Breaking from a conventional

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