Images of the mind: psychiatry in the commercial film.
There are many striking temporal and cultural parallels in the development of commercial films and psychiatry. The psychiatrist has been depicted in widely varying ways--as madman, as a powerful force for tinkering with the soul, and as a wonder worker who cures patients by uncovering a single traumatic event. The early years, in which psychiatric issues were often treated simplistically or sensationally, were followed by a "latency period". After the war there was a deluge of psychological films, which also began to deal with emerging social issues. Contemporary films tend to focus on madness as a metaphor or on the struggle of seemingly normal, successful people to find fulfillment. Psychiatry and film are "toys that have grown up together," along with the consumers of both.
D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders; D009040:Motion Pictures; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history; D011639:Public Opinion; D012922:Social Change; D012924:Social Conditions