Wahnsinnsfilme (Mind-blowing Films)

Scientific interest in the portrayal of mental disorders in feature films and series is booming, as shown by book publications and national and international congress programmes. This turn to film shows that in the field of psychopathology there is once again an increased longing for case histories that counter the current orientation of psychiatry towards numbers, facts, data and guidelines with a narrative and hermeneutic element and emphasise the value of a descriptive and understanding approach to mental suffering.

Doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, caregivers, relatives of the mentally ill, affected persons and interested laypersons as well as media and cultural studies scholars can learn a lot from the “madness stories” that films and series tell us.

Content

The Escaped Lunatic (1904) – The Other (1913) – Shadows (1923) – Kurutta ippēji (1926) – Sang d’un poète (1930) – The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) – Psycho (1960) – Disgust (1965) – Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977) – Shining (1980) – A Fatal Affair (1987) – The King of Fishermen (1991) – Hell (1994) – 12 Monkeys (1995) – Pi. System in Chaos (1998) – K-Pax. Anything is Possible (2001) – Donny Darko (2001) – Spider (2002) – Madly in Love (2002) – The Machinist (2004) – Lars and the Women (2007) – Jekyll (2007) – Shutter Island (2010) – Black Swan (2010) – The Sum of My Parts (2011) – Perception (2012-2015) – Hirngespinste (2014) – Bates Model (2013-2017) – The Other Lover (2017) – Legion (2017-2019) – Joker (2019).

Editors

Univ. Prof. Dr. Martin Poltrum, Professor of Psychotherapy Science at Sigmund Freud University Vienna, philosopher, psychotherapist and teaching therapist
Prof. Bernd Rieken, Professor of Psychotherapy Science at Sigmund Freud University Vienna, lecturer in European Ethnology at the University of Vienna, psychotherapist and teaching analyst in Baden near Vienna
Ulf Heuner, editor in Berlin, doctor of philosophy and theatre studies


Martin Poltrum, Bernd Rieken, Ulf Heuner (eds., 2023).

Wahnsinnsfilme (Mind-blowing films)
Psychosis, Paranoia and Schizophrenia in Films and Series.

Berlin, Springer Verlag, 449 pp.
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