Psychiatrists and Psychiatry in American Films: A Psychohistorical Study

FAIN: FA-11458-76

Leslie Yale Rabkin
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Seattle, WA 98112)

To study the cultural meaning of the psychiatrist1s role and the conflicts in which he is implicated as seen through a psychohistorical examination of seventy-five years of American film representation of psychiatric phenomena - the psychiatrist, his patients, and the latter’s problems. Grantee will explore the historically changing and consistent forms of disturbance portrayed, the types of characters afflicted, and the characteristics and methods of the professionals who treat them.