When Inez finds a disposable syringe and a glassine envelope in Jessie's garbage can and thus learns that Jessie shoots heroin, she seeks advice from four different professionals. All of the therapists offer differing opinions about how to best help Jessie, who, as it turns out, uses heroin not because she's an addict, but as what Didion calls a "consumer decision. Jessie Victor used heroin simply because she preferred heroin to coffee, aspirin, and cigarettes, as well as to movies, records, cosmetics, clothes, and lunch" (172).

Is this explanation just another example of Victor family "spin"?

Find a list of other diagnostic, pharmacological, and therapeutic references in Democracy below. What's their relative level of success with Jesse? Is she the only member of the family who might benefit from psychological or psychiatric help? Who are others? Why does Didion subject only Jessie to the therapies?

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

methadone
demerol

shock treatment
sibling gestalt