My dissertation traces the development of The Rest Cure alongside and within Transatlantic Modernist Literature. Beginning with Silas Weir Mitchell’s earliest explorations of the role rest plays in recovery I explore the ways in which Mitchell’s Rest Cure codified certain forms of discrimination into psychiatric medicine. Modern Literature not only reflects the ways in which the rest cure influenced and impacted modern life, but was itself influenced and impacted by the treatment practice, so much so that many prominent authors of the era cannot be divorced from discussion of the rest cure. My dissertation emphasizes the necessity of studying the history of the rest cure alongside and against literature written by modernist authors whose lives were irrefutably impacted by its development. Doing so, I demonstrate the ways in which the outdated policies and practices embedded in the rest cure continue to impact the study of literature. I propose re-evaluating the way we as scholars and historians examine the rest cure, both as it occurs in literature and as it exists as a set of discursive practices that continue to shape and inform social interactions in the present moment.