Exploring popular images and
representations of psychotherapy:
how professionally are therapists’ stances depicted?
Nowadays, the growing impact of mass media, cinema and the internet has undoubtedly influenced public attitudes regarding the prevalence of mental illness and mental health pro-fessionals. In fact, research suggests that an individual’s conceptualization of psychotherapy and its use is basically formulated through stereotypic portrayals of psychologists in TV pro-grams, films or books (Jorm, 2000).
As far as psychotherapy is concerned, there is a tendency in recent films- Hollywood’s movies in particular- to depict psychotherapists and other mental health professionals as unethical boundary violators. Since terms such as psychologist or psychiatrist are not clearly distinct, many viewers or readers may feel confused trying to understand the differences among professions.
There are many stereotypes and biases concerning the profession of the psychotherapist as depicted in films and books. Sometimes a therapist may be portrayed as an eccentric, peculiar or even funny person as in Lethal Weapon 3 (1992). In other cases, a therapist may be presented as a cognitively impaired person, as in Raising Cain (1993), not to mention the case where we see the therapist as an insane murderer (Buried Alive, 1990). On the other hand, we should not overlook the fact that there are films where the therapist is depicted as a real professional with a proper therapeutic stance. In Citizen X (1995), for instance, a forensic psychiatrist provides a very accurate psychological profile of a murderer and, later, helps the police by interviewing the killer in a very effective way.
Article by : Panos Antonopoulos
Psychologized / June 2014