Long story, but I need to find a fictional character who is a psychiatrist (or psychoanalyst or similar) from some work of literature, preferably a minor character. I do not want someone who is made fun of (like the shrink in Catch 22) or ineffectual. I want someone who is helpful and intelligent.
All I can come up with is the shrink at the end of Psycho, but that’s not exactly “great literature.” Anyone have any thoughts?
You could look at the Mental illness in fiction wikifor ideas. Dr. Wilbur from Sybil was the only name that came to mind.
The TV showbased on this Perry Masonbook says the doctor is a psychiatrist, I don’t know if it was written that way in the novel.
How about The Prince of Tides character, Susan Lowenstein (played by Barbra Streisand in the movie)? Seemed like a positive model of a psychiatrist, at least from my vague recollections of the movie.
So Lucy van Pelt doesn’t count?
Sidney Freedman in MASH (the TV show).
The psychiatrist in The End of the Road (book and movie) certainly helps Jacob Horner, but his techniques are certainly not standard.
There’s also the psychologist from Ordinary People.
Dr. Stanley Freedman from the MAS*H TV show?
The Judd Hirsch character (Dr. Berger) in Ordinary People comes to mind. The movie was based on a novel, but I haven’t read it.
Dr O’Mara from James White’s Sector General stories is competent, but many or may not be disqualified for the “minor character” part. His importance varies greatly depending on the story; he ranges from a background figure to being the protagonist in one short story and one of the novels. So it would depend on if the series as a whole has to be considered, or just one of the stories where he doesn’t have much presence.
Define ‘literature.’ Does it have to be something highbrow, or any trashy novel.
Does it have to be written, or will a movie or TV series do?
Not literature and maybe a little bit of a comic character, but the first thing I thought of was Dr. Kroger on the Monk TV series.
Johanna Von Haller, the Jungian psychoanalyst in Robertson Davies’ The Manticore.
And I guess Dr. Bell after Stanley Kamel, the actor who portrayed Dr. Kroger, died, but I’ll always think of Dr. Kroger first in Monk.
Hannibal Lector from “Silence of the Lambs” would sort of fit the requirements, though perhaps he had a rather more prominent role than the OP is looking for, albeit not the lead role in that book. He certainly was helpful to agent Starling, and was quite frighteningly intelligent.
The first kindly fictional mental health professional who springs to mind is the title character on The Bob Newhart Show, but that’s not literature and he’s not a minor character.
After a little more thought, I came up with Dr. Fried in I Never Promised You A Rose Garden by Hannah Green (pen name of Joanne Greenberg). She is the main character’s therapist and is very helpful to her in dealing with her mental illness and feelings of guilt and shame.
Essentially he whole of Portnoy’s Complaint is a monologue of Portnoy speaking to his psychoanalyst. However, (I am not sure because it is a very long time since I read it) I do not think we learn much if anything about the analyst. I am not sure if he even gets to speak.
There is Dr Haber in Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven. He is sort of the villain, but initially at least, has good intentions, IIRC. Certainly he is not comical or incompetent, but the book is science fiction and the psychiatry involved does not bear much resemblance to the real thing.
If we are including TV (as most posters seem to be doing - doesn’t anyone read books any more?!), the obvious ones are surely the Crane brothers, Niles and Frasier. Although they are comic characters, they are not comic psychiatrists: that is, I think we are supposed to believe that they (perhaps Niles, especially) are genuinely competent at their work and really help their patients. They are only doofuses in their life outside the consulting room.
The psychiatrist at the end of this movie (I haven’t read the novel) was sympathetic and helpful:
But while looking up that one, I thought also of the Claude Rains character in the movie Now, Voyager ( Now, Voyager - Wikipedia ), based on a novel by Olive Higgins Prouty that I also haven’t read. He’s exactly what you’re looking for!
I can’t think of the title; been many, many years since I’ve really tried to look for it. The fictional story takes place during World War II, European theater, at an Army Air Corps hospital, the psychiatric wing. One of the first scenes features a soldier going in to interview for an assignment as an orderly. The doctor asks the soldier what experience he’s had in psychiatric hospitals, and the soldier says that he’s been in a few. Through a typical paper-work snafu, the soldier’s papers saying that he’d been in psych wards got translated as his having experience in psych ward work, but, well, he’s really willing to do his best.
The soldier just has a little Tourette’s Syndrome problem, is all. The doctor figures that the thing to do is order the soldier to cuss him out first thing in the morning, but at no other time, and that that might provide the soldier with enough emotional relief. This relationship endures.
… and I Can’t Think Of The Name Of The Doctor, which is also part of the book’s title. Arghhh! They also made a movie about it, I think.
The book is a little dated, I think. I believe in a major crisis scene, an airman finally breaks down into full schizophrenia (is that possible?), demonstrated by his going into a transgender episode. Offensive by today’s standards, yeah.
I would like to learn the name of the book, just for my own emotional well-being.
Iz Einsam from Alison Lurie’s “The Nowhere City”. A fairly unconventional character, his extremely dubious methods are portrayed as being central to the psychological development of the main character (Katherine Cattleman, his secretary)
What, especially, do you need of this character? Apart from “being a psychiatrist”?
Doonsbury had a run of strips with an army counsellor named Elias. Not sure if he was a psychiatrist or not though.
Granted that’s kinda stretching the definition of “literature”.
If TV counts, there’s Frasier and Niles Crane.