In an earlier post I discussed how the mental health profession has relied heavily on film for teaching examples and the reasons why.\u00a0 Today I will discuss how the screenwriter draws on (and perhaps should) modern psychiatry, if not for inspiration, at least for authenticity.\u00a0 For much of the previous century, films incorporated very little insight from psychiatry.\u00a0 There were two reasons for this: the first was the fact that psychiatry was still in its infancy; the second was\u00a0 that most writers had very little contact with the mentally ill.\u00a0 People that were seriously mentally ill, such as schizophrenics, were almost always placed in mental institutions and thus the public had essentially no contact with them.\u00a0 There was one exception to this, and that was the psychoanalytic theories and techniques of Sigmund Freud.<\/p>\n
The influence of Freud was pervasive in 20th<\/sup> century films, particularly in the area of symbolism. In my Screenplay as Literature<\/em> I wrote about Federico Fellini\u2019s use of Freud\u2019s theories in his films, particularly in his marvelous 8 \u00bd <\/em>(1963)<\/em>.\u00a0 But despite Freud\u2019s popularity with certain filmmakers, audiences and critics could ignore Freud and still enjoy their films.\u00a0 For example, with 8 1\/2<\/em> you could know nothing about Freud or understand little about the inner psychological conflicts of the main character, Guido, yet find the film highly entertaining.<\/p>\n In the last quarter of the 20th<\/sup> Century, psychiatry and mental health practices in general changed dramatically in the United States.\u00a0 In short, the mental institutions were emptied out, as their former patients were dumped on the public on the justification that powerful new drugs could control their serious mental illnesses.\u00a0 Thus, for the first time, the public was introduced to people suffering from mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder (i.e. manic-depressive).\u00a0 Then there were the classification of many new syndromes that impair behavior such as attention-deficit and post-traumatic stress syndromes.\u00a0 Anyone who has watched the television series Law and Order<\/em> is probably aware of the difficulty that prosecutors have in securing convictions against felons, particularly in the case of murder, due to the proliferation of evermore \u201csyndromes\u201d that can be offered up as a defense<\/p>\n These advances have provided writers with much new material, plot and character wise. \u00a0The cable television series Homeland <\/em>is an intriguing example of this.\u00a0 In this series the main character, a high-ranking officer for an American spy agency, suffers from bi-polar disorder, for which she takes powerful medications.\u00a0 It is indeed a breakthrough to depict people with mental illness able to excel in high-powered jobs.\u00a0 What is fascinating about this series from a writing point of view is that we are never sure when the main character becomes infatuated with a new man if this is a symptom of her bi-polar disorder or actual love.\u00a0 The same could be said when she becomes stubbornly insistent on her work-related insights\u2014is this genius, or the failure of her medications to work properly?\u00a0 In any event I am sure that qualified psychiatrists are employed to act as consultants to the show.<\/p>\n The real challenge today may not be serious mental impairments such as schizophrenia, for which people may be institutionalized, but impairments that are referred to as personality disorders<\/em>. The better known (to the public) of such disorders are paranoid, obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic, <\/em>and anti-social<\/em>.\u00a0 The latter is particularly important for writers of crime shows because it is estimated that up to thirty percent of imprisoned criminals are diagnosed as having anti-social personality disorder (by the way, people who are diagnosed with this disorder are alternately called sociopaths<\/em> and psychopaths<\/em>).<\/p>\n Why are personality disorders a challenge for the writer?\u00a0 They are because most of the characters that writers write about, particularly the most interesting, may be covered by such diagnoses.\u00a0 Why is this a problem?\u00a0 It is a problem because it difficult to incorporate the concept of free will.\u00a0 People diagnosed with a personality disorder may not be capable of making valid choices, such as between good and bad and rational and irrational. \u00a0\u00a0So the problem for the writer when dealing with characters that appear to have one of these disorders is the following: \u00a0when trying to determine what the character is going to do next, do you consult a book on dramaturgy and plotting or a psychiatric manual?<\/p>\n A recent cable television series provides an interesting example of a dilemma such as this.\u00a0 Here, during the first two seasons, one of the main characters does the following:\u00a0 is unfaithful to her husband, destroys the marriage and family of her lover\u00a0without remorse, steals drugs from a hospital for her own personal use, willingly participates in illicit drug dealing, lies to her lover (now her second husband) about who got her pregnant, and finally is perfectly comfortable in having him go to prison for a crime that she committed.\u00a0 You wouldn\u2019t be overreaching if you concluded that this character exhibits many of the characteristics of a psychopath.<\/em> Keep in mind that she is very sympathetically portrayed (her first child died due to a tragic accident).\u00a0 And I neglected to mention that her lover\/new husband is a classic narcissist.\u00a0 The question we have to ask ourselves is the following: \u00a0is this a story about a woman who desperately wants to get her chaotic life in order or the unfolding of a horrendous train wreck or both?<\/p>\n As a disclaimer I wish to make it clear that I do not purport to be an expert on mental health issues.\u00a0 My intent is simply to highlight the challenges that these issues present for writers today.\u00a0 No matter what your opinion is about modern psychiatry, the examples of its relevancy and practice confront us on a daily basis and can no longer be hidden-away behind the locked gates of mental institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an earlier post I discussed how the mental health profession has relied heavily on film for teaching examples and the reasons why.\u00a0 Today I will discuss how the screenwriter draws on (and perhaps should) modern psychiatry, if not for … Continue reading