‘You Have Sprained Your Brain’: Margaret A. Cleaves, Autobiography of a Neurasthene

Abstract

Explores the possibility of dualistic readings of Margaret Cleaves’ Autobiography of a Neurasthene in light of George M. Beard’s theory of neurasthenia and Freud’s theory of hysteria. Posits that while Cleaves herself believed her manifold symptoms were of a somatic nature due to a constitutional deficiency in nerve force, her Autobiography provides ample evidence of psychosomatic sources of her ill health in her father’s early death and in her premature weaning, which is seen as manifest in her anorexia, lifelong predilection for milk, and poor relationship to her mother. Concludes the Autobiography offers models of the two conflicting perceptions of the mind/body relationship in the late nineteenth century.