UNIT 1: REBECCA HASBROUCK

Read the following passage, both to gain a general idea of its content, and also so that you will be prepared to answer questions on points of detail.

Twenty years of clinical practice had not prepared me for my encounter with Rebecca Hasbrouck. Working in the outpatient department of a large psychiatric facility, I had encountered hundreds of people whose stories would move me, but for some reason, Rebecca's seemed unusually troubling. Perhaps it was her similarity to me in so many ways that stirred me up. Like me, she was in her mid-forties and had mothered two sons when she was in her early thirties. She had been raised in a middle-class family and attended excellent schools. In fact, when I first spoke with Rebecca, my attention was drawn to the faded Polaroid photo that she grasped tightly in her fist. It was the picture of a jubilant 22year-old Rebecca on the day of her graduation from an Ivy League university. She stood beside her parents and her older sister, everyone gleaming with pride about all that she had accomplished and filled with the greatest of expectations about all that would lie ahead for her. I later learned that she was planning to attend one of the most prominent law schools in the country, where she would pursue a specialization in maritime law. Everyone, including Rebecca, assumed that a life of happiness and personal fulfillment would lie ahead. Before telling you the rest of Rebecca's story, let me tell you more about my initial encounter with her. It was the Tuesday morning following Labor Day weekend. The summer was over, and I was returning from a restful vacation, burdened somewhat by the prospects of the correspondence, the messages, and the new responsibilities that awaited me. I had arrived early that morning, even before the receptionist, with the hope of getting a head start on my work. As I approached the clinic's entrance, I was shocked, however, to find a disheveled woman lying up against the locked door. Her hair was dirty and knotted, her clothes torn and stained. She looked up at me with piercing eyes and spoke my name. Who was this woman? How did she know my name? The sight of countless homeless people on the streets of the city every day had made me numb to the power of their despair, but I was suddenly startled to have one of them call me by name. After unlocking the door, I asked her to come in and take a seat in the waiting room. As she emerged from a state of seeming incoherence, this woman told me that her name was "Rebecca Hasbrouck." She explained that she had been given my name and address by an old college friend whom she had called after paging through a discarded phone book which she had found on the street. Rebecca's friend apparently recognized the seriousness of her condition and urged her to get some professional help. I asked Rebecca to tell me how I could be of assistance. With tears streaming down her face she whispered that she needed to "return to the world" from which she had fled three years earlier. Not knowing what she meant, I asked her to tell me what that "world" was. The story that unfolded seemed unbelievable. She explained that just a few years earlier she was living a life of wealth and comfort in an upper middle-class suburb. Both she and her husband were very successful attorneys, and their two sons were bright, attractive, and athletically gifted. Oddly, Rebecca stopped there, as if that were the end of her story. Naturally I asked her what happened then. Upon hearing my question, her eyes glazed over as she drifted into a detached state of apparent fantasy. I continued to speak to her, but she did not seem to hear my words. Several minutes went by, and she returned to our dialogue. Rebecca proceeded to tell me the story of her journey into despair and poverty. Interestingly, the turning point in Rebecca's life was almost three years to the day of our encounter. As she and her family were returning from their vacation in the mountains, a large truck violently rammed their car, causing it to careen off the road and roll over several times. Rebecca was not sure of how her body was propelled from the wreckage, but she does recall lying near the burning vehicle as fire consumed the three most important people in her life. For the weeks that she spent in the hospital recovering from her own serious injuries, she wandered in and out of a state of consciousness, convinced all the while that her experience was that of a bad dream from which she would soon awaken. Upon her release from the hospital, she returned to her empty home but was tormented relentlessly by the voices and memories of her sons and her husband. In the middle of a cold October night she walked out the front door of her home, dressed only in a nightgown and slippers. Walking the four-mile distance into the center of town, she called out the names of these three "ghosts" and searched for them in familiar places. At one point, she went to the front door of the police chiefs home and screamed at the top of her lungs that she wanted her sons and husband "released from prison." A police car was summoned and she was taken to a psychiatric emergency room. However, during the process of her admission, she cleverly slipped away and set out on a path to reunite with family members, who were "calling out" to her. During the three years that followed this tragic episode, Rebecca had fallen into a life of homelessness, losing all contact with her former world.

Sarah Tobin, Ph.D.

(Source: Richard P. Halgin and Susan Krauss Whitbourne, ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY, The Human Experience of Psychological Disorders) Unfamiliar vocabulary fade = lose freshness and vigor of color gleam = shine with subdued or interrupted brightness disheveled = with disordered hair; (of person) untidy, ruffled numb = deprieved of feeling or power of motion discard = cast aside; give up ram = dash or violently impel careen = turn on one side, heel over relent = become less stern, abandon harsh intention

Reading for gist Answer the following questions in your own words. Then link your answers together to provide a summary of the passage. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Why does Sarah Tobin find Rebeccas story unusually troubling? Which was the most shocking element of the authors encounter with Rebecca? Why did Rebecca look for assistance? What generated Rebeccas present condition? How did Rebecca start her life as a homeless?

Use of language THE PASSIVE VOICE When the passive voice is used in a sentence, the stress is not on the agent (or the person), but on the object of the sentence; so using the passive voice, the object becomes the subject of the sentence. Study the following excerpts from the text: She had been raised in a middle-class family and attended excellent schools. my attention was drawn to the faded Polaroid photo that she grasped tightly in her fist. her body was propelled from the wreckage A police car was summoned and she was taken to a psychiatric emergency room. These sentences contain passives. Could you rephrase these sentences in the active voice?

Compare the active and the passive forms: ACTIVE: An old college friend had given her my name and address Subject verb object

PASSIVE: She had been given my name and address (by an old college friend) Subject be + past participle agent