Psychology and cinema are cousins, born at the same time and developing together, so that each influences the other. From the mind-controlling villains that occupy early horror films and cold war thrillers (like "Caligari", "Mabuse", and "The Ipcress File"), to the asylums that house numerous political allegories and personal dramas (in "Shock Corridor", "Spellbound", "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", and "Girl, Interrupted"), to the drugs, phobias, and disorders that pervade so many of our favourite films (including, "Vertigo", "Night of the Hunter", "Psycho", "Rainman", "Fight Club", "Requiem for a Dream", and "Batman Begins"), there is no escaping either psychology in the movies, or the movies in psychology. By looking at the interactions between cinema and psychology, this book offers readers clear and basic insights into some of the most fundamental reasons why film is such an important influence upon our lives today." Movies and the Modern Psyche" begins by describing the basic concepts of psychoanalysis, experimental psychology, behavioural conditioning, and hypnosis, which have all played major roles in the histories of both film and psychiatry, and then goes on to discuss the recent rise in film therapy, drug treatments, treatment for drug abuse, and the closing of asylums, to show how shifts in treatment techniques, theories, and settings are foreshadowed and fossilised by film.