Literature and Medicine

2004 Archives Part III of III - Literature, Arts & Medicine Interest Group

Hollywood has had a long-standing love affair with
psychiatry (Gabbard and Gabbard, 1999; Schneider, 1987, 1977). Dating
from the first psychiatric film, Dr. Dippy's Sanitarium (1906), almost
500 movies dealing with the specialty have been made. While the film
industry has demonstrated a particular fascination for depicting
psychotherapy, physical treatments including electroconvulsive therapy have also
been featured (McDonald and Walter, 2001; Walter, 1998). Indeed, some
of the major psychiatric films--The Snake Pit (1948), One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Frances (1982) and Shine (1996)--have prominent
convulsive therapy scenes. (See the Table for a selected chronology of
films depicting ECT.)