{{Short description|1958 anonymous book about schizophrenia}} {{Use American English|date=May 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox book | name = Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic | image = Operators and Things (1st ed dust jacket cover).png | caption = First edition cover | author = Anonymous; published under the pen name Barbara O'Brien | language = English | genre = Autobiography | pub_date = 1958 | pub_place = Cambridge, Massachusetts | pages = 166 pp. (first edition) | publisher = Arlington Books | congress = 58-8397 | oclc = 1336334671 | isbn = 978-0-615-50928-0 | dewey = 616.8 }} '''''Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic''''' is a 1958 autobiographical account of a woman's experience with the onset and recovery from schizophrenia, published anonymously under the pen name Barbara O'Brien.
Published by Arlington Books, the book follows the author as she wakes up to see three gray and wispy figures in front of her bed, whom she calls "operators", the same name as she gives to those in her professional life who manipulate others for their own gain. The figures take her on a journey across the United States, where she eventually sees a psychoanalyst. The book was reviewed in a number of publications, with Robert Kirsch describing it as "a work of brilliance and power, evoking a combination of Kafka and Joyce, with a touch of Orwell".
==Author and background== ''Operators and Things'' was authored by an anonymous woman writing under the pen name "Barbara O'Brien". Arlington Books, a publisher based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, printed the book in 1958,<ref name="TDI">{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-item/172319714/|title=Bookcast|last=Hayes|first=E. Nelson|newspaper=The Daily Item|page=14|date=March 25, 1959|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=May 27, 2025}}</ref><ref name="Piotrowski">{{cite journal |last=Piotrowski |first=Zygmunt A. |year=1977 |title=Book Review: Operators and Things (Book) |journal=Journal of Personality Assessment |volume=41 |pages=189–191 |doi=10.1207/s15327752jpa4102_14 |number=2}}</ref> their first book published.<ref name="Striking">{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/lincoln-journal-star/172319622/|title=Striking Debut|newspaper=Lincoln Journal Star|date=May 10, 1959|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=May 27, 2025|archive-date=May 21, 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250521214735/https://www.newspapers.com/article/lincoln-journal-star/172319622/|url-status=live}}</ref> Originally slated to be published by Beacon Press, it was one of several books that Beacon editor Tom Bledsoe brought to his newly founded Arlington Books.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jackinson |first=Alex |date=1987 |title=The romance of publishing: an agent recalls thirty-three years with authors and editors |url=http://archive.org/details/romanceofpublish0000jack |location=New York |publisher=Cornwall Books |pages=179 |isbn=978-0-8453-4797-3 |via=the Internet Archive}}</ref> The first edition contained an introduction by Michael Maccoby and a perfunctory note by L. J. Reyna.{{sfn|O'Brien|1958|p=v}} Subsequent editions were published in 1975 by A. S. Barnes,<ref name="Piotrowski" /> 1976 by Signet, and in 2011 by Silver Birch Press.<ref name="SBP2011">{{cite book |title=Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic|orig-year=1958|year=2011|publisher=Silver Birch Press|last=O'Brien|first=Barbara|url=https://www.silverbirchpress.com/operators_and_things.html}}</ref> According to the 2011 version, the last time anyone had heard from O'Brien was in 1976, when she wrote an additional chapter for a new version of the book. Her author's blurb for the 1976 publication stated she was "fully recovered" and living outside of Los Angeles, but did not reveal her real identity.<ref name="SBP2011" />
==Plot summary== The book is an autobiographical account of an anonymous woman's onset with and recovery from schizophrenia. One morning, O'Brien awakens to find three gray, wispy figures standing at her bedside. She terms these figures the "operators", who take her throughout the United States and eventually to a psychoanalyst. In her job in business, O'Brien defines "operators" as those who manipulate others for success or achievement. The "things", on the other hand, are defined as those who cannot "operate", who work on "trust and candor", according to Robert Kirsch of the ''Los Angeles Times''.<ref name="Kirsch">{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times/172319580/|title=The Book Report: The World of a Schizophrenic|last=Kirsch|first=Robert R.|date=June 11, 1959|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=May 27, 2025}}</ref> The wispy figure "operators" last for approximately six months and then disappear. The second half of the book deals with her "amateurish theorizing" (according to a writer for ''The Daily Item'' [''TDI'']) on the nature of her illness.<ref name="TDI" />
==Reception== The book was reviewed in a number of publications. Kirsch called the book "a work of brilliance and power, evoking a combination of Kafka and Joyce, with a touch of Orwell".<ref name="Kirsch" /> A writer for ''The Daily Item'' called ''Operators and Things'' "fascinating reading".<ref name="TDI" /> In ''The Sacramento Bee'', a reviewer said O'Brien's work may have been better off in a magazine, which the reviewer attributed to her slick style and her "unsettling habit of downgrading practically every psychoanalytic and psychiatric study method".<ref>{{cite news |last=C. F. |first=P. |date=September 27, 1959 |title=Books in Brief |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sacramento-bee/172319475/ |access-date=May 27, 2025 |newspaper=The Sacramento Bee |via=Newspapers.com |archive-date=May 21, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250521214328/https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sacramento-bee/172319475/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The ''Lincoln Journal Star'' described the book as striking and strange, and called O'Brien intelligent,<ref name="Striking" /> while a review in the ''Nashville Banner'' said the book was not another ''Three Faces of Eve''. The ''Banner'' went on to say that it would interest the layman while impressing the professional due to O'Brien's thorough examination of the unconscious self.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ballard |first=Barney |date=April 17, 1959 |title=Operators and Things |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/nashville-banner/172319537/ |access-date=May 27, 2025 |newspaper=Nashville Banner |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> ''Publishers Weekly'' summarized the book as "an absorbing account of life in the dream world of a schizophrenic".<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Publishers Weekly|volume=207|number=5|date=February 3, 1975|page=44|publisher=F. Leypoldt|title=Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic}}</ref> Leicester Cotton of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' called the author's fugue terrifying.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sydney-morning-herald/172319662/|title=Six Months of Insanity|last=Cotton|first=Leicester|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=June 25, 1960|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=May 27, 2025}}</ref> The book was also reviewed in ''CoEvolution Quarterly''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Slooten |first=Judith Van |date=Summer 1975 |title=Learning: Operators and Things |url=https://archive.org/details/coevolutionquart00unse_3/page/154/mode/2up |journal=CoEvolution Quarterly |issue=6 |pages=154 |id={{ProQuest|1958596096}}}}</ref> Mark Bould suggests the book is actually a "satire on corporations, patriarchy and alienation, published as a schizophrenic's autobiography."<ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=http://archive.org/details/RedPlanetsMarxismAndScienceFiction |title=Red Planets: Marxism And Science Fiction |date=2009 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |editor-last=Bould |editor-first=Mark |pages=260 |lccn=2009926386 |editor-last2=Miéville |editor-first2=China|editor-link2=China Miéville}}</ref>
In ''Journal of Personality Assessment'', Zygmunt A. Piotrowski observed O'Brien's personality change as from ambitious to less so post psychosis, with the change described as desirable so as to lessen her stress and so as to not threaten her sense of reality.<ref name="Piotrowski" /> The book is analyzed in an article titled "Misattribution of agency in schizophrenia: An exploration of historical first-person accounts" in the journal of ''Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences'' by J. P. M. A Maes and A. R. Van Gool.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Misattribution of agency in schizophrenia: An exploration of historical first-person accounts|last1=Maes|first1=J. P. M. A|journal=Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences|last2=Van Gool|first2=A. R.|volume=7|year=2008|issue=2 |pages=197–199|doi=10.1007/s11097-007-9082-y}}</ref> The book was also reviewed by Samuel J. Beck in the ''Archives of General Psychiatry'',<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Beck |first=Samuel J. |authorlink=Samuel Jacob Beck |date=August 1959 |title=Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic. |url=http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/archpsyc.1959.03590020128013 |journal=Archives of General Psychiatry |language=en |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=232 |doi=10.1001/archpsyc.1959.03590020128013 |issn=0003-990X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and Richard Lazarus in ''Contemporary Psychology''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lazarus |first=Richard S. |authorlink=Richard Lazarus|date=April 1960 |title=Lay Writers View Psychopathology |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_contemporary-psychology_1960-04_5_4/page/138/mode/2up |journal=Contemporary Psychology |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=138–140|doi=10.1037/006295 }}</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|Books}} * List of memoirs about schizophrenia * {{annotated link|The Eden Express|''The Eden Express''}} * {{annotated link|Mary Barnes (artist)|Mary Barnes}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
===Works cited=== * {{Cite book |last=O'Brien |first=Barbara |year=1958 |title=Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic |url=https://archive.org/details/operatorsthingsi0000obri |url-access=registration |others= Introduction by Michael Maccoby; perfunctory note by L. J. Reyna |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=Arlington Books}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:1958 non-fiction books Category:American autobiographies Category:Books about schizophrenia Category:English-language non-fiction books Category:Works published under a pseudonym