As demonstrated by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” 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. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is based on her personal experience with the “rest cure,” exemplifies Mitchell’s treatment failing, worsening a patient’s condition, and its prejudice towards women. His 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.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” serves as an example of the “rest cure” not effectively treating mental illness. At the beginning of the story, the narrator has some form of nervous mental illness that many theorize to be Post Partem Depression because she often has hallucinations of a woman who she sees in her wallpaper and also “on the long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage come she hides under the blackberry vines” (Gilman). Further supporting her Post Partem Depression, the narrator often worries for her baby that she “cannot be with” because John has kept her away (Gilman). However, despite her illness, the narrator appears to be sane and logical at the beginning of the story. 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 (Gilman). 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” (Gilman) who the narrator believes to be “just like John… only more so” (Gilman). Unfortunately, the “rest cure” that John prescribes dramatically worsens her condition instead of improving it. Throughout the story, we observe the narrator gradually being 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 how the “rest cure” has confined her to her room, in the wallpaper. As she has hallucinated the women creeping, the narrator creeps around the perimeter of her room as if bound to the wall and is so flooded with insanity that she steps over her unconscious husband who fainted at the sight of her. The narrator, based on Charlotte Gilman, was, for the most part, mentally sound until the isolation of the “rest cure” drove her insane.

Mitchell’s “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 (Stiles). Women were assigned this treatment partially due to the “honest medical ignorance” about psychology, psychotherapy, and women’s health during the 19th century (Poirier).  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). Mitchell founded the rest cure based on the notion that women are unintelligent, domestic, and frail. 

S. Weir Mitchell created a different treatment to be prescribed to men with similar ailments at the time. The “west cure” was used to treat many famous men of the time such as Walt Whitman and young Theodore Roosevelt. They were not limited to bed rest and kept in the home where a woman was believed to belong, but rather men were sent “out West to engage in prolonged periods of cattle roping, hunting, roughriding and male bonding” (Stiles) because these are the kind of activities that the stereotypically masculine would engage in. Both the “rest cure” and the “west cure” were designed to treat some sort of nervous mental illness, however, because of the perception of gender during this time, men and women were prescribed opposing treatments. For men, this nervousness was seen as an indication “of a highly evolved brain and nervous system” while the same mental condition further supported the existing stereotype that women are fragile and emotional (Stiles). 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 prescribed for nearly identical symptoms to men and women truly reflect the societal structure of the 19th century. 

In response to Mitchell’s “rest cure”, 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” (Harris). 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 purpose in their lives through their activities. As the replacement to the “rest cure” used to treat women, 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” (Harris). 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” was only successful in nearly driving many of the women who were prescribed it to augment their nervousness completely insane. However, it found little success in treating women’s nervous ailments. 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 it was 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. Both S. Weir Mitchell and the narrator’s husband, John, serve as examples of men creating a treatment for an illness they know little to nothing about like Post Partem Depression. While the “rest cure” robbed many women, like Charlotte Gilman and her narrator, of their sanity, it at least served as an example of how not to treat 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.
