2016

2016 marks a shift from the account of Kim Jiyoung’s life to the unnamed psychiatrist’s clinical record of her treatment. His summary draws on accounts from Jiyoung and her husband, Jung Daehyun, but the year’s significance lies in more than the start of therapy: as the psychiatrist revisits his diagnosis, the circumstances around Jiyoung’s distress become harder to separate from the gendered demands of work and care.

The Clinical Frame

The psychiatrist describes Jiyoung attending 45-minute sessions twice a week. Her symptoms have become less frequent but have not disappeared; to address depression and insomnia, he prescribes antidepressants and sleeping pills. This account places treatment within an ongoing process rather than presenting a quick resolution.

Daehyun had previously visited the psychiatrist alone to discuss Jiyoung’s symptoms and possible treatment. He arranged a therapy session because she was sleeping poorly and seemed stressed, telling her about it as a practical response. Jiyoung thanked him and said she had been feeling low and enervated, suspecting maternity blues. Her response contrasts with Daehyun’s concern: she acknowledges how she feels but does not appear to recognize the extent of the condition he has brought to the doctor’s attention.

Revising the Diagnosis

The psychiatrist initially suspects dissociative disorder after hearing Daehyun describe Jiyoung’s symptoms. After his first session with her, however, he settles on what he regards as a typical case of postnatal depression that has progressed into childcare depression. As treatment continues, his confidence in that explanation weakens. He does not conclude that his original diagnosis was simply false; instead, he recognizes that it may have been made too hastily.

His reassessment turns on how Jiyoung speaks in the sessions. She does not complain about the injustice of her present circumstances or continually return to childhood trauma. Though she needs encouragement to begin, she can then uncover long-buried memories herself and describe them calmly and logically. The scenes she chooses to recount lead the psychiatrist to question not her credibility, but the narrowness of the account he had initially imposed on her experience.

The Life Behind the Symptoms

The 2016 record gathers the accumulated pressures that preceded treatment. When Jiyoung and Daehyun considered having a child, she feared that she might not be able to sustain both childcare and her career. They worked through three possibilities on a large sheet of paper: her returning to work immediately, returning after a year of maternity leave, or not returning. They considered childcare responsibilities and costs, including sending their daughter, Jung Jiwon, to Daehyun’s parents in Busan or employing a live-in nanny. Neither option seemed workable: his parents were elderly, and a nanny would bring substantial expense and become part of the household’s daily life.

They concluded that one parent would have to stay home, and that it would be Jiyoung. Daehyun’s work was more stable and better paid, while the expectation that wives would care for children and manage the home reinforced the decision. Jiyoung had already named what she stood to lose: her youth, health, job, colleagues, social networks, career plans, and future. Daehyun listened and offered to help, but the couple’s eventual choice placed the career interruption on her.

When Jung Jiwon started daycare shortly after turning one, she adjusted well. Her routine gave Jiyoung about three hours without her daughter, but most of that time went to laundry, dishes, tidying, and preparing food. Daycare did not create a block of leisure; it changed whether Jiyoung did the housework with her child beside her. The teacher’s suggestion that Jiwon might stay later and nap at daycare nevertheless gave Jiyoung the prospect of more time to consider starting something new.

Awareness and Its Limits

The psychiatrist’s change in understanding reaches beyond his reading of Jiyoung. He reflects that, as an average man in his forties, he might otherwise have passed through life unaware of what it means to live as a woman and mother in Korea. His awareness has been shaped partly by watching his wife relinquish successive ambitions in medicine, from seeking a university position in ophthalmology to working as a contract doctor and eventually leaving her career. In this frame, the psychiatrist’s medical account becomes an account of learning: Jiyoung’s history exposes how easily social pressures can be treated as an individual patient’s symptoms.

The ending complicates that recognition. At the clinic, Lee Suyeon, a valued employee, has left work after a high-risk pregnancy and several scares. The psychiatrist notes that her departure has led some patients to end therapy rather than transfer to another counselor, and considers the financial loss to the clinic. Despite his newly stated awareness of the gendered burdens of childcare, he decides that Suyeon’s replacement should be unmarried. The 2016 frame thus closes not with insight fully translated into change, but with a visible gap between recognizing a system’s costs and reproducing its assumptions.