Article ID: CBB737134786

The Autobiography of a Neurasthene (1910): The Medical Counternarratives of Margaret Abigail Cleaves, MD (2022)

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This article argues that Margaret Abigail Cleaves's The Autobiography of a Neurasthene was part of a body of nineteenth-century writing that attempted to reclaim and recover the voices of American women by chronicling their struggles with illnesses and cures and documenting their interactions with the medical profession. Cleaves's gynocentric counternarrative was a searing criticism of the prevalent medical model of her era that questioned its treatment of neurasthenic women and offered therapeutic alternatives such as electric, light and music therapy. By doing so, it positioned Cleaves as a significant force of change in understandings of women and their bodies.

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Authors & Contributors
Yeonsik Jung
Moran, Rachel Louise
Montgomery, Sarah Fawn
Rudnick, Lois P.
Hannah Dudley-Shotwell
Turner, Marion
Concepts
Medicine and gender
Women's diseases
Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment
Mental disorders and diseases
Neurasthenia
Medicine
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
20th century, late
21st century
Medieval
Places
United States
Netherlands
Germany
Europe
Dublin (Ireland)
New England (U.S.)
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