Part 1 of Essay
In "," the novelist Susanna Caisson, 43, uses a series of vignettes to describe her experiences as a teen-age mental patient in 1967-68. Using herself as a troubled - and troubling - example, Kaysen demonstrates with humor the severe problems with diagnosis, the sensation of psychiatric hospitalization and the callousness ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... Disorders," this condition could be the human condition, for it consists of "uncertainty about several life issues, such as self-image, sexual orientation, long-term goals or career choice, types of friends or lovers to have" - what one of Caisson's therapists called "people whose lifestyles bother them." Certainly, Caisson suggests , such uncertainty is the normal state of teen-agers. Especially the smart ones, such as Caisson herself, who, like clever prisoners, learn to work the hospital's system of rules and ....