Demons of the mind: The ‘psy’ sciences and film in the long 1960s

Tim Snelson,William R. Macauley

doi:10.1177/09526951211028525

Tim Snelson, William R. Macauley

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https://doi.org/10.1177/09526951211028525

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Abstract

This introduction provides context for a collection of articles that came out of a research symposium held at the Science Museum's Dana Research Centre in 2018 for the ‘ Demons of Mind: the Interactions of the ‘Psy’ Sciences and Cinema in the Sixties' project. Across a range of events and research outputs, Demons of the Mind sought to map the multifarious interventions and influences of the ‘psy’ sciences (psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis) on film culture in the long 1960s. The articles that follow discuss, in order: critical engagement with theories of child development in 1960s British science fiction; the ‘horrors’ of contemporary psychiatry and neuroscience portrayed in the Hollywood blockbuster The Exorcist (1973); British social realist filmmakers' alliances with proponents of ‘anti-psychiatry’; experimental filmmaker Jane Arden's coalescence of radical psychiatry and radical feminist techniques in her ‘psychodrama’ The Other Side of the Underneath (1973); and the deployment of film technologies by ‘psy’ professionals during the post-war period to capture and interpret mother-infant interaction.

Highlights

This special issue emerged from a symposium for the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project ‘Demons of Mind: the Interactions of the ‘Psy’ Sciences and Corresponding author: Tim Snelson, University of East Anglia, School of Art, Media and American Studies, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7TJ, UK
We identify the ‘long 1960s’ as a period of intense struggles over competing claims and understandings of the human mind, with psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts in deep conflict or, in some instances, uneasy alliances
This was the period of professional and public disputes over key developments in the psy professions, such as the clinical use of antipsychotic and psychotropic drugs (Moncrieff, 2013); theories on the role of genetics and personality used to diagnose and treat behaviour labelled as deviant, psychotic, or criminal (Hakeem, 1958; Steinfels and Levine, 1980); theories of child development and attachment (Vicedo, 2013); theories of conformity, obedience, and bystander apathy (Darley and Latané, 1968); psychology’s contribution to defining sexuality, gender, and women’s oppression (Herman, 1995); the popularisation of psychotherapy (Zaretsky, 2004); and the emergence of the ‘anti-psychiatry’ movement (Staub, 2011; Wall, 2017). It was a period in which cinema and other popular media became preoccupied with the ‘demons of the mind’, with horror, science fiction, crime, and thriller films, in particular, becoming key ways in which psychological concepts were disseminated as well as debated within the public sphere

Summary

Introduction

This special issue emerged from a symposium for the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project ‘Demons of Mind: the Interactions of the ‘Psy’ Sciences and Corresponding author: Tim Snelson, University of East Anglia, School of Art, Media and American Studies, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7TJ, UK.

Results

Conclusion