I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is an autobiographical novel by Joanne Greenberg, written under the pen name of Hannah Green. (struggle with psychosis/schizoprenia)

Hailed by The New York Times as "convincing and emotionally gripping" upon its publication in 1964, Joanne Greenberg(Hannah Green)’s semiautobiographical novel stands as a timeless and unforgettable portrayal of mental illness. Enveloped in the dark inner kingdom of her schizophrenia, sixteen-year-old Deborah is haunted by private tormentors that isolate her from the outside world. With the reluctant and fearful consent of her parents, she enters a mental hospital where she will spend the next three years battling to regain her sanity with the help of a gifted psychiatrist. As Deborah struggles toward the possibility of the "normal" life she and her family hope for, the reader is inexorably drawn into her private suffering and deep determination to confront her demons.

Additionally, the character of Dr. Fried in the novel is based closely on Greenberg's real doctor Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, and the hospital on Chestnut Lodge in Rockville, Maryland.