J.D. Salinger's novel opens up with Holden in a mental hospital, or a place in California where he went after he "got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy." In addition, the novel ends with Holden writing in second-person point-of-view, ending a therapy session probably, saying, "I could probably tell you what I did after I went home ... but I don't feel like it." As a result of this...
J.D. Salinger's novel opens up with Holden in a mental hospital, or a place in California where he went after he "got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy." In addition, the novel ends with Holden writing in second-person point-of-view, ending a therapy session probably, saying, "I could probably tell you what I did after I went home ... but I don't feel like it." As a result of this opening and closing, you, the reader, can probably place Holden, the narrator, on a therapist's couch telling his story.
When you approach the story from the point-of-view that the book you are reading is a therapy session, you can understand why Holden is confused throughout the novel. He's working through a confusing time in which he's basically attempting to get over his brother's death, even though it happened years before, and dealing with growing up and becoming an adult, which he detests.
As a reader, you can compare this to your feelings of confusion in regards to his long stream-of-consciousness narratives, including the one in the early part in which he discusses his brother Allie and his baseball glove and how Holden shattered all the windows in the garage after Allie died. You can even think about all the times in which you were confused about something and had all these thoughts that seemingly were connected, but didn't feel so.
Overall, The Catcher in the Rye is the perfect novel to use psychological techniques to examine the Holden Caulfield.
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