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Millen Brand's Savage Sleep is a fictionalized account of John Rosen's method for curing psychosis. But, perhaps more important, the novel pictures his frustration and the resistance he encountered. These feelings are put very succinctly when Brand as Dr. Marks (Rosen) says: “I'm a native bastard who thinks everybody wants to do something about sickness, physical or mental … I can't understand it when they don't want to do something … it's just too hard for them to do the scout work of the unconscious.”
Brand's novel gives one of the most moving examples of these frustrations in one of the best hospitals in the city. The supervising doctor in charge of the children's ward was a trained analyst. Yet, he insisted on giving the children insulin shock. Dr. Marks discovered that a child, who was in his immediate care, was sensitive to insulin. Against orders, he decreased the amount of time the child spent in insulin shock, thus saving his life. He attempted to persuade the resident who later took over his service to do the same. But he could not, and the child died. The incident was buried with the child.
Dr. Marks' supervisors consistently refused to observe him use psychological means to cure patients or even to talk to patients he had cured. When he cured a patient, their explanation was that the patient had never been ill, or that he was still sick. Colleagues who were more accepting admired him, but seemed too frightened to become involved.
Brand shows very vividly, Rosen's deep dedication and almost obsessive need to bring the patient out of psychosis. He never stopped trying to cure a patient. Almost everything