Silas Weir Mitchell’s 19th century “rest cure” was found to be widely unsuccessful in treating nervous mental illness and discriminated against women. In response, psychotherapy evolved and founded more successful treatments. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is based on her personal experience with the “rest cure” that dramatically worsened her condition. The treatment consisted of extended bed rest with no mental or physical activity beyond electrical muscle stimulation. Further, Mitchell instructed his patients to eat high fat diets that consisted mostly of dairy like the buttermilk diet. S. Weir Mitchell treated several famous women like Jane Addams, Virginia Woolf, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman who spoke out against the treatment and helped encourage psychotherapy to evolve on to other methods.

As proven by Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the “rest cure” did not effectively treat mental illness. At the beginning of the story, the narrator has some form of nervous mental, but, for the most part, appears to be sane and logical. Her husband, John, is a physician who “hardly lets [the narrator] stir without special direction” because he insists that he knows what is best for her and her mental health, even though he is not a psychologist (CR 300). John goes as far as to threaten that, if the narrator does not progress quicker with her treatment, “he shall send [her] to Weir Mitchell” (CR 303) who the narrator believes to “just like John… only more so!” (CR 304) Unfortunately, the “rest cure” that John prescribes dramatically worsens her condition instead of improving it. Throughout the story, we can observe the narrator gradually be driven insane by the “rest cure” that isolates her from the rest of the world and does not allow her to do any sort of mental or physical activity. By the end of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator is so disconnected from reality that she believes there is woman trapped, similar to herself, in the wallpaper of her room and creeps around the perimeter of her room as if bound to the wall and steps over her unconscious husband.

The “rest cure” was used primarily to treat women. “The Rest Cure ensured that women remained in their “proper” sphere: the home” by isolating them from their friends and family in their house (“Go Rest, Young Man”). Women were assigned this treatment partially due to the “honest medical ignorance” about psychology, psychotherapy, and women’s health during the 19th century. However, the primary reason why women were given a gender specific treatment is due to the cultural stereotypes and societal structure of the 19th century. During this time, “physicians (and male physicians even more so) had the right –even the obligation–to advise female patients on all aspects of their lives” like the narrator’s husband, John, did as part of her “rest cure” treatment (Poirier). S. Weir Mitchell believed that women were “sickly and emotional creatures” that needed guidance and counsel from men to keep them sane, domestic, and obedient (Poirier).

While the “rest cure” mainly used for nervous women, S. Weir Mitchell created a different treatment to be prescribed to men with similar ailments at the time. The “west cure” was prescribed to many famous men such as Walt Whitman and young Theodore Roosevelt. Instead of being limited to bed rest, men were sent “out West to engage in prolonged periods of cattle roping, hunting, roughriding and male bonding” (“Go Rest, Young Man”). Both the “rest cure” and the “west cure” were designed to treat the same nervous mental illness, however, because of their gender alone, men and women were prescribed totally opposing treatments. For men, this nervousness was seen as an indication of an “of a highly evolved brain and nervous system” while the same mental condition further supported the existing stereotype that women are fragile and emotional (“Go Rest, Young Man”). Men often found the “west cure” to be highly enjoyable and relaxing, while women were isolated from their friends and family and commonly driven insane by the treatment that was supposed to help them. The two different treatments to identical symptoms among men and women truly reflect the societal structure of the 19th century. 

In response to Silas Weir Mitchells, Richard Cabot founded the “work cure” in the early 20th century. Instead of encouraging his patients to not do any physical or mental activity, Cabot urged that his patients to do “useful activities” like “taking a college course, helping manage an office, or taking up pottery or carpentry” (“From Rest Cure to Work Cure”). Cabot wanted his patients to immerse themselves in activities where they would be surrounded by mentally healthy people and learn from their habits. Also, in the meantime, they would keep busy, hopefully be distracted from their nervous ailments, and find purposes in their life through their activities. Further, the “work cure” did not discriminate based on gender. Cabot believed that his “work cure” and these activities would “restore good health and spiritual abundance” (“From Rest Cure to Work Cure”). Richard Cabot’s ideologies inspired doctors all over the United States to create programs that treated patients with nervous mental illnesses in a similar fashion. 

Silas Weir Mitchell’s “rest cure” only found success in nearly driving many of the women who were prescribed it to augment their nervousness completely insane. Because there was little psychological knowledge at the time, the “rest cure” was not supported by significant medical information indicating that it would be successful, but rather on 19th century cultural stereotypes of men and women that led Mitchell to create a cure for women that kept them domesticated and one for men that allowed them to be useful and out in the world. While the “rest cure” robbed many women of their sanity, it at least served as an example of how not to treat acute, nervous mental illnesses. In a period where there was little to no information on psychotherapy, these treatment failures gave doctors something to learn from so that treatment methods could evolve into something more successful. By the start of the 20th century, Cabot created the “work cure” in place of Mitchell’s “rest cure” and found more success in that. Today, psychotherapy has become much more effective and impartial to gender partially because doctors have learned from past mistakes like S. Weir Mitchell’s “rest cure.”
