USING FILM IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHIATRY

Abstract

Since the film camera was invented in the late nineteenth century, psychiatrists and their associates in allied disciplines have attempted to capture the symptomatology and treatment of mental illness in moving images. Film was used by ‘psy’ scientists for different ends over the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth century: as a diagnostic tool, as the means to create a visual archive of pathological gesture and expression, and as documentary and exposé. This chapter explores the opportunities and difficulties that face the historian of psychiatry when using film sources. It begins with a discussion of the parameters of psychiatric film and the expansion of its use in the mid-twentieth century. The following section explores the epistemological value of film within psychiatry and relevant implications for historical analysis. This extends into an examination of three salient issues facing the researcher: the fragmentary nature of film evidence, the ethical uncertainties surrounding the filming of patients, and the uses of empathy. The chapter ends with a list of major film archives and their holdings.