Modern cinema is increasingly portraying the figure of the therapist not as an infallible guide, but as a protagonist struggling with their own psychological unraveling. This shift moves the analyst from the periphery of the story—a role occupied by characters in films like Good Will Hunting—to the center of the frame, where their professional expertise often fails to protect them from personal trauma or supernatural threats.
The concept of the “wounded healer” has deep roots in psychological history. Sigmund Freud, who said all psychoanalysts should “submit” themselves to being analysed, posited that all analysts should undergo their own analysis. Contemporary horror and psychological thrillers are now testing the limits of this theory, placing mental health professionals in situations where their own internal stability is systematically dismantled.
The Shift from Support to Protagonist
For decades, the therapist in film served largely as a plot device—a sounding board for a troubled lead character to vocalize their internal conflicts. They existed to facilitate the growth of others.
Recent releases have inverted this dynamic. In the 2022 psychological horror film Smile, the protagonist is a psychiatrist (Sosie Bacon). In this narrative, her professional background provides no armor against a malignant metaphor for her poor mental health. The film uses the psychiatrist’s clinical environment to heighten the horror, suggesting that even those who study the human mind are vulnerable to the most primal, irrational fears.
This trend continues with recent independent projects. In Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Rose Byrne portrays a therapist and floundering mother caught in a downward spiral. The film explores the friction between the expectation of emotional composure and the reality of private collapse.
New Narratives of Unraveling
The portrayal of the “shrink” as a failing human being has become a recurring motif in recent European and independent cinema. The focus has shifted toward the isolation inherent in the profession. When a therapist lives alone, disconnected from their own support networks, the psychological toll of their work becomes a catalyst for genre-bending storytelling.
In the film Backrooms, Renate Reinsve unravels from a secure, calm and collected psychiatrist and self-help author who lives alone and subsists on a diet of lacklustre ready meals to a nervous wreck attempting to navigate the uncanny corridors of her own mind. Similarly, Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life features Jodie Foster as a shrink turned sleuth. Her character’s pursuit of the death of a former client serves as a proxy for her own unresolved issues regarding her spouse and parent.
These films suggest that the “healer” is often the most broken character in the room. By stripping away the clinical veneer, filmmakers are forcing audiences to confront the idea that professional knowledge does not equate to personal resilience. This thematic choice resonates with a broader cultural conversation about the visibility of mental health struggles among those who are tasked with treating them.
Why the Therapist Is a Compelling Horror Figure
The therapist makes for an effective horror lead for several specific reasons. First, they possess the vocabulary of trauma; when they begin to lose their grip on reality, they are often self-aware enough to recognize the symptoms, which adds a layer of intellectual dread to their decline. Second, the power imbalance inherent in the patient-therapist relationship creates a natural tension when that power is stripped away.
When a character who is expected to have all the answers is left without them, the audience is forced to engage with the fragility of the human psyche. These films do not necessarily critique the practice of therapy, but rather use the profession as a lens to examine the limits of human endurance. As these stories continue to emerge, the “shrink” is being redefined as a character who is just as capable of falling apart as the people sitting on their couch.
As an editor covering the intersection of film and culture, I find this trend reflects a growing interest in the fallibility of experts. Whether through the lens of psychological thrillers or character-driven dramas, the current cinematic landscape is clearly moving toward a more nuanced, and often darker, portrayal of those who spend their lives listening to the pain of others.
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