The Wonderful Story Of Johanne Greenberg

We know the story of Joanne Greenberg thanks to the wonderful autobiographical work she published in 1964 and which was also made into a movie: I never promised you a rose garden. Beyond the powerful drama he exhibited there, what his testimony provided was a concrete and verifiable example of a schizophrenia cure.

For psychiatry, schizophrenia is an incurable mental disorder. They call it “the cancer of the mind.” In fact, there is not even one treatment that is fully effective in eliminating symptoms. In addition, biological psychiatry offers drugs whose efficacy, in any case, is limited.

That is why the story of Joanne Greenberg is a hopeful milestone . Your case is fully documented. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was almost a child. Your case could be considered serious. It included visual and auditory hallucinations and a complex web of ruptures with reality. Thanks to a treatment through the word, he was completely cured.

The beginning of the Joanne Greenberg story

Joanne Greenberg’s story begins in 1932, in the United States. She suffered a series of physical problems that took her from hospital to hospital, having to endure severe and painful treatments. As a consequence, the girl begins to create a world of her own and to enter it.

Joanne speaks of a “fourth level.” This corresponds to the kingdom of Yr. It has its own time, its own logic and even its own language. There is a black god and a series of sinister characters who speak with Joan and alert her to the evil of the world. Sometimes they are also insidious and torment her with threats and warnings of dangers.

Joanne Greenberg is diagnosed with schizophrenia due to her inability to distinguish what is in her mind from the real world. At 16 her father takes her to a mental hospital. There he meets the person who would change his life: Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. She had been a disciple of Freud in person. He had a staunch conviction: no patient, however disturbed, was inaccessible to psychotherapy.

A long therapeutic process

The psychotherapist Frieda Fromm-Reichmann had married Erich Fromm, who had been her patient. She later divorced him, but closely followed his humanistic postulates. She was convinced that schizophrenia could also be cured through words in a therapeutic space.

What the psychoanalyst does is enter into a sympathetic dialogue with Joanne. He questions her and inquires about her life, in order for her to verbalize the painful events that took place in her life. Mainly it seeks to bring out the repressed memories, what is behind the “forgetting”.

The whole story of Joanne Greenberg and her therapeutic process with Frieda Fromm-Reichmann is what is captured in the novel I never promised you a rose garden. That expression is literal. It was used by the psychoanalyst when Joanne begins to substitute her mental world for the real world. He finds that there are injustices in this and he denies that he has abandoned the realm of his imagination. The answer Frieda gives you then is that phrase.

The testimony of this case: schizophrenia that was cured by psychotherapy

These two women, Joanne and Frieda, challenged the truths of psychiatry. Joanne was completely healed. From the psychoanalytic point of view, there is no one who can be called “normal” in the strict sense. However, Joanne achieved what we popularly call normalcy: fending for herself. Study, fall in love, get married. Sometimes be happy and sometimes not.

One of the most beautiful passages in the book reads as follows: ” Getting well does not mean that later your life will be a rose garden (you have to) enjoy your rose garden when it is in bloom and take it easy at other times. ” Frieda died before completing psychoanalysis, but by the time Joanne was already out of the mental hospital, studying at the university and trying to lead an autonomous life.

Frieda never allowed Joanne to be treated with drugs. It was a real challenge to psychiatry, from which he came out very well. Joanne, according to her testimony, is the reflection that schizophrenia can be alleviated. This, however, caused great controversy. Those most attached to the concept that equates mental illness with brain disease have consistently refused to give this process the credit it deserves.

Be that as it may, the story of Joanne Greenberg is a beautiful testimony of hope. A reference that should not be overlooked by those who are truly interested in the human mind and understand that, in reality, it has no imaginable limits.