Shrinking on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: How Horror Movies Came to Therapists | film

TThere is an old adage that “every wizard needs a therapist.” Even when therapy was still in its infancy, Sigmund Freud said that all psychoanalysts should “subject” themselves to analysis. Modern cinema has been keenly aware of this painful cycle that cannot be broken. In the likes of If I Had Legs to Kick You, Mary Bronstein’s hallucinatory Rose Byrne in which she plays a therapist and a struggling mother caught in a downward spiral, or 2022’s Smile, in which a psychiatrist (Sousie Bacon) is stalked by a sly metaphor for her poor mental health, therapists are as much at the mercy of their trauma as anyone else.

Instead of being relegated to supporting characters, as has long been the case in everything from Good Will Hunting (1997) to The Sopranos, the film finally gives the therapists their moment on the couch. Within a month of its release in UK cinemas, two more stunt bikers take on the lead roles. Back Rooms sees Renate Rensev completely disintegrate from a safe, calm, collected psychologist and self-help author (even though she lives alone and lives on a diet of lackluster takeaways) to a nervous wreck trying to navigate the strange corridors of her mind. Meanwhile in Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Private Lives,” French-speaking Jodie Foster takes on the role of a shrinking doctor-turned-detective who decides to investigate the death of a former client without realizing that she is trying to make up for her shortcomings as a wife and mother.

The motivation behind this new on-screen rendition of sick healer heroes is in some ways clear: more people than ever are receiving treatment. A 2026 survey found that 37% of UK adults were seeking their services, an increase of 2% on the previous year. Although stigmatized years ago, the treatment is now described as “sexy.” The emergence of the therapeutic influencer, or “TherapyTok,” has allowed these professionals and their terminology to transcend the confines of the therapist’s room into mainstream culture. Several audio files have been devoted to this topic, from popular psychiatrist Esther Perel’s book, Where Should We Begin? to the true crime therapy podcast The Shrink Next Door, which may have inspired Zlotowski. Then reality TV began happily breaking client anonymity, with couples therapy, all of which helped push the practice to the center of the collective consciousness.

Even so-called therapeutic speech has moved into cinema. Critic Billy Walker points out the questionable use of this language in spin-offs of psychological franchises such as Nicolas Cage’s Vampire film Renfield (2023), in which the titular sidekick reveals that he has an unhealthy, co-dependent relationship with Dracula. However, beyond the characters’ deceptive diagnoses, the cinematic reputations of the therapists themselves have been steadily declining for years. In Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island (2010), menacing asylum staff may or may not be conspiring to bring down upstanding detective Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio). Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley (2021) depicts a radioactive healer straight from hell, Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), who blackmails her wealthy clients and records her sessions for later use in blackmail. And in Beau Is Afraid (2023), a fragile man-child wizard finally reveals himself as one of his coterie of enemies.

This trope of the evil wizard may have evolved into a more rounded and plausible image for these practitioners. The filmmakers have come to terms with the fact that psychotherapists, as Bronstein points out, are not impossibly self-sacrificing “perfect” individuals like Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, but flawed human beings—their career choice of a holistic counselor making them all the more interesting as a result. As a caregiver to her daughter, Byrne’s character, Linda, is at the end of her rope, unable to meet her own needs let alone those of her patients. But in contrast, her personal analyst (and boss), the grumpy Conan O’Brien, who has his own life and flaws to deal with, is unable to be there for Linda the way she wants, creating an endless series of frustrated therapists.

What this new league of on-screen misguided wizards have in common is that they exist in the realm of horror. The supernatural worlds that filmmakers create are designed to reflect the escalating negative thought patterns of their main characters. Whether it’s a maze of enhanced memory in the back rooms, a magical asbestos-filled hole in the ceiling in “If I Had Two Legs I’d Kick You,” a shock-hungry demon in “Smile” or a sinister hypnotic trip in “Private Lives,” the other parts of these novels serve to foster an atmosphere of claustrophobia, paranoia and dread. Although there have been rare comedic equivalents of wizard characters in recent years, such as in the movie Shrinking, these fictional wizards generally inhabit a landscape of horror.

More than just the evil therapist trope—which suggests that our psychiatrists are out to get us—these new therapists tap into a much greater fear. Since all people are flawed in unique ways and burdened by their own personal baggage, how equipped is any therapist to properly deal with another person’s problems? Interestingly, in each of these versions, a real sense of dread emerges when the previously reserved wizard loses his temper. While doubts remain about therapy as an infallible cure for our problems, it is not surprising to see such puzzling concerns displayed on screen.