Reel psychiatry

Science News, Sept 19, 1987 by Bruce Bower

The second period, from 1957 to 1963, was the "Golden Age of psychiatry in the cinema,' in which benevolent psychiatrists routinely returned troubled people to well-being. "Fear Strikes Out' and another 1957 film, "The Three Faces of Eve,' helped to initiate the Golden Age. The culmination of this period came in 1962 with a number of movies, including "David and Lisa,' which many psychiatrists still refer to as one of the most realistic depictions of psychiatric treatment.

Third, say the Gabbards, is a period of consistently negative depictions beginning in 1963. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists were often associated with society's false values and shown to be inept or malevolent. The 1950s fantasy of social harmony and better living through psychiatry--"created by psychiatry itself as well as by the movies,' according to the Gabbards--inevitably failed and fed the fire of anti-authority, antipsychiatry movies.

The appearance of "Ordinary People' in 1980, they say, may have signaled a turning in the negative tide of movie psychiatrists.

But both Schneider and the Gabbards hold a special place for the films of Woody Allen and Paul Mazursky. These directors, they say, gently poke fun at psychiatry while using it to explore human relationships. Mazursky cast a real-life psychologist, Penelope Russianoff, as Jill Clayburgh's therapist in "An Unmarried Woman' (1978) and used a practicing psychiatrist, Donald Muhich, in the role of a therapist in four other films.

Psychotherapists who view, rather than act in, movies about their profession have long complained about the images presented to the public. But Schneider holds that they can learn much from their movie counterparts. "When recommending hospitalization or assertive treatments,' he says, "the psychiatrist might well remember with what fear and distrust they are typically depicted in the movies.' In addition, Schneider says the recurring image of Dr. Wonderful as someone motivated by caring and not money, who works in a modest office and is willing to show concern and quickly respond to emergencies, is "the expression of a public desire psychiatry should heed.'

Psychiatry's image problem in movies of the last 20 years mirrored a general trend, say the Gabbards, marked by declining numbers of medical students choosing to pursue a career in psychiatry and a steady decrease in federal funding for psychiatric research and education. At the same time, they note that "the public at large has always maintained a split view of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts.' Awe at their perceived ability to unscramble the mysterious workings of the mind is mixed with contempt for their limitations and disappointment with their failure to solve complex problems. Psychotherapists perceived as "somehow perfect or superior to everyone else' are envied and feared, and must be "continually ridiculed and put in their place.'

Therapists must accept that they serve as a target for negative feelings in their patients, say the Gabbards, and that this role can spread onto the movie screen. Mental health professionals can take some consolation, however, in the intense interest in psychiatry and psychotherapy expressed by filmmakers and ticket buyers. "To paraphrase Oscar Wilde,' they conclude, "the only thing worse than being portrayed in movies negatively is not being portrayed in movies at all.'