The mental health phenomena cited in the book include “folie a pleusieurs,” a condition whereby a hysteric infects others with their delusions; the Thematic Apperception Test, a sort of representational Rorshach test for kids; and of course the old faithfull, Thorazine which would have been the drug of choice in the 1980s for psychotics. The term “the quiet room” I heard from a friend who once worked in psychiatric facilities for children.
By the way, my mother, Martha Noel Evans, literally wrote the book on hysteria.
