Overview

Cinema, Suffering and Psychoanalysis explores psychological disorder as common to the human condition using a unique three-angled approach: psychoanalysis recognises the inherent suffering encountered by each subject due to developmental phases; psychology applies specific categorisation to how this suffering manifests; cinema depicts suffering through a combination of video and aural elements. Functioning as a culturally reflexive medium, the six feature films analysed, including Black Swan (2010) and The Machinist (2004), represent some of the most common psychological disorders and lived experiences of the contemporary era. This book enters unchartered terrain in cinema scholarship by combining clinical psychology’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Five (DSM-V) to organise and diagnose each character, and psychoanalysis to track the origin, mechanism and affect of the psychological disorder within the narrative trajectory of each film. Lacan’s theories on the infantile mirror phase, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic, Žižek’s theories on the Real, the big Other and the Event, and Kristeva’s theories on abjection and melancholia work in combination with the DSM’s classification of symptoms to interpret six contemporary pieces of cinema. By taking into consideration that origin, mechanism, affect and symptomatology are part of an interconnected group, this book explores psychological disorder as part of the human condition, something which contributes to and informs personal identity. More specifically, this research refutes the notion that psychological disorder and psychological health exist as a binary, instead recognising that what has traditionally been pathologised, may instead be viewed as variations on human identity.

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Reviews

The Mechanism of Self is unique and vital addition to the canon of film analysis, bringing together psychoanalysis and psychology in order to explore, in exciting new ways, the manner with which cinema can represent our deepest struggles and darkest experiences. An authoritative, and highly readable, exploration of cinema and suffering. * Scott Wilson, Senior Lecturer of Critical Studies, Massey University, New Zealand *

Cinema, Suffering and Psychoanalysis is unique and vital addition to the canon of film analysis, bringing together psychoanalysis and psychology in order to explore, in exciting new ways, the manner with which cinema can represent our deepest struggles and darkest experiences. An authoritative, and highly readable, exploration of cinema and suffering. * Scott Wilson, Senior Lecturer of Critical Studies, Massey University, New Zealand * This is a fascinating and expertly written account of the relationship between clinical psychology, psychoanalysis and cinema. Dr Stephenson’s thoroughly engaging writing style, which is both accessible and informed by detailed and thorough research, and her use of appropriate films as case studies, results in a compelling argument for approaching cinema in a novel way. * Jamie Medhurst, Professor of Media and Communication, Aberystwyth University, UK * Focusing on psychological suffering through the lens of film, Laura Stephenson innovatively combines the diagnostic capacity of psychiatry with the subjective insights of psychoanalysis to show that suffering is not abnormal. It affects, and unifies, us all. With equal parts acuity and compassion – for the film protagonists as well as for ourselves, their inevitable companions – Stephenson shows why we are fascinated with psychological disorder in film, and what it may tell us about our own condition. In a world of compounding mental health concerns, this is a book of and for our times. * Misha Kavka, Professor of Cross-Media Culture, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands *

Author Information

Laura Stephenson is Senior Lecturer in Film at the University of Westminster, UK. In her role on the BA (Honours) Film degree she brings together the oft-divided worlds of screen theory and practice. Her research interests are driven by the notion that suffering is an integral aspect of the lived-experience, with much of her philosophical work exploring identity, trauma and the human condition through cinema and television texts. She aims to continue researching and publishing in the growing academic field of medical humanities.

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