Monsters, Demons and Psychopaths

Psychiatry and Horror Film

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by Fernando Espi Forcen

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Horror

Keywords

horror, monsters, psychiatry

Publishing date

2016

Publisher

Routledge

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 240 pages
6 x 9 ½ inches (15.5 x 24 cm)

ISBN

978-1-4987-1785-4

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Book Presentation:
Descriptions of monsters, vampires, demonic possessions, and psychopaths in horror films have been inspired by psychiatric knowledge about mental illness, leading to several stereotyped models of horror that have prevailed through decades. Some scholars have proposed that horror films can be a teaching tool for psychopathology, but for the most part the genre has been underutilized as a learning tool. This book explores the idea of relating horror films to psychiatric ideas as a way of engaging people in learning.

About the Author:
Fernando Espi Forcen, PhD , is an assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatry of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He is the author of more than 20 peer-reviewed articles in different areas of psychiatry and the founding editor of The Journal of Humanistic Psychiatry.

Press Reviews:


"Dr. Forcen's book includes the gamut of clinical psychiatric insights, historical anecdotes and tie-ins between the distant past and the present. He merges cutting edge neuropsychiatry with psychoanalytic influences…The author delves into horror before film and taps into his training in art history to best avail. He excavates important areas from history of psychiatry, including the Renaissance era's conflation of psychosis with witchcraft, which led to the shameful witch hunts that persisted long past the time when shifts in scientific understanding should has snuffed them out. He proceeds to "timeless" topics that continue to captivate us to this day: vampires; monsters; demons; zombies, for starters. He compares those figments of imagination to psychopaths and to various real-life psychotic syndromes that are diagnosed and treated by today's psychiatrists. He explores the immutable historical links between psychiatry and supernatural explanations for strange behavior or disturbing perceptions—and tosses in psychoanalytic explanations for their unending appeal to our unconscious." Sharon Packer, Asst. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine

See the publisher website: Routledge