Frames of Minds

A History of Neuropsychiatry on Screen

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by Eelco F.M. Wijdicks

Type: Studies
Subject: Sociology
Keywords: psychiatry, medecine
Publishing date: 2025 (January 31, 2025)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 384 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-0-19-761589-8

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Book Presentation:
• Presents an innovative approach to film history and neuropsychiatry
• Examines the themes and impact of over 400 psychiatry-related films
• Includes newly discovered source material and discusses its implications

As a medium that aims to connect people through the communication and interpretation of experiences, cinema is uniquely positioned to showcase cultural misunderstandings around issues of mental health. Frames of Minds traces a history of psychiatry in film, concentrating on the major paradigm shifts in neuropsychiatry over the last century. Oftentimes, representations of psychiatry, mental illness, and psychotic breakdown are reduced to tropes and used by filmmakers as a tool for plot progression. Conversely, films can be used as an avenue to voice common concerns about the missteps of psychiatry, including overdiagnosis and mistreatment. Dr. Eelco Wijdicks provides fresh insights into the minds of filmmakers and how they creatively tackle this complex topic. How do filmmakers use psychiatry, and what do they want us to see? What is their frame of mind—psychoanalytically, biologically, sociologically, anthropologically? Were they influenced by their own prejudices about the origins of mental illness? How does this influence the direction of their films?

Examining the history of film alongside developments in neuropsychiatry, Frames of Minds uncovers a cinematic language of psychiatry. By taking chances to portray mental illness, filmmakers aim to achieve a sense of reality, and provide catharsis for viewers through the act of dramatization. Ultimately, the history of psychiatry in film is a history of the public perception of medicine, and the ways psychiatry is understood by directors, writers, actors, and audiences.

About the Author:
Eelco F.M. Wijdicks, Professor of Neurology, Mayo Clinic Eelco F.M. Wijdicks, MD, PhD is Professor of Neurology at the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic. In 1992, he established the Mayo Clinic Neurocritical Care Program. He was the founding editor of Neurocritical Care, the official journal of the Neurocritical Care Society and has been named Honorary Member of the Neurocritical Care Society. He originated the FOUR SCORE coma scale and has over 1000 research papers, practice guidelines, topic reviews, book chapters, and editorials to his credit, as well as having single-authored, co-authored, and edited 35 books on neurocritical care. Dr. Wijdicks is also an attending neurointensivist in the Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit at Saint Marys Hospital, Rochester, MN, and is a Professor of the History of Medicine. He is the recipient of the Dutch Winkler medal, the Karis Award, and the Distinguished Educator Award. Dr. Wijdicks has studied medical representation in cinema and written scholarly film reviews for medical journals and has published on the interface between psychiatry and neurology. This book is part of a series on medicine in film and includes Cinema, MD, Neurocinema, and Neurocinema: The Sequel.

Press Reviews:
"The pleasures of film-viewing are the gateway to new understandings of the human mind. With this visionary and essential compendium, Eelco Wijdicks has done the deep work of illuminating connections that will alter the way we think." - Kirsten Johnson, Filmmaker

"Dr. Eelco Wijdicks again turns his authoritative gaze on the cinema of illness and medicine with a sweeping history that investigates how, from the earliest nickelodeons, the medium has treated the facts and known understanding of complicated conditions and disorders. Hollywood loves pain and neurosis, and Wijdicks examines a wide range of co-morbidity factors that suffuse the best and worst (famous and overlooked) movies. These range from substance abuse, depression, and schizophrenia to an examination of how the penchant for violence on the screen, especially from certain stars and filmmakers, might affect your mental health." - Patrick McGilligan, Film historian and biographer

"Psychiatry and film have long had an uneasy relationship. However, the celluloid's view has been often subverted by sensationalism, scaremongering, and the reification of stigma. Frames of Mind is as much a scholarly exploration of the history of mental health and film, as an invitation to imagine intersections. Dr. Eelco Wijdicks offers an entreaty toward an overdue agenda for cinema and psychiatry: one that replaces voyeurism and exploitation of some of society's most vulnerable with a shared commitment to better understand, empathize, and elicit meaningful action on their behalf. This volume will help us better appreciate, through film, not just the burdens of mental illness, but the promise of treatment, recovery, and reintegration." - Andres Martin, Psychiatrist, Yale School of Medicine

"In Frames of Mind, Eelco Wijdicks narrows his historical aperture to neuropsychiatric representations. This work not only better focuses our appreciation of how mental illness by actors, writers, and directors have shaped audiences' perspectives on these diseases, but also documents how filmmakers have appropriated depictions of mental illness as metaphors to dramatize their era's cultural chief concerns., Frames of Mind is a director's cut of brave scholarship exploring where the movie magic ends and medical misrepresentation begins for pressing issues and politically charged subjects like substance use, sanity, violence, and more." - Michael P.H. Stanley, Neurologist, Tufts Medical Center

See the publisher website: Oxford University Press

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