The Psychology of Fiction

In an effort to spice up the classroom and dodge patient privacy concerns, psychology professors are teaching pathologies of fictional characters, like Twilight’s vampire, Edward. “Sigmund Freud named the Oedipus complex for Sophocles’ tragic character and was fascinated with Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. Increasingly, professors from Psych 101 to medical schools and psychoanalytic institutes are using fiction and film in classroom assignments or outside electives,” writes Melinda Beck for The Wall Street Journal. “Students in the mental-health disciplines can sometimes learn as much about what it means to be human from studying popular films and novels as they can from sitting with a patient,” says Glen Gabbard, a professor of psychiatry and psychoanalysis at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.