The best novels featuring good and bad psychiatrists

A young woman in training at the FBI's behavioral sciences unit is assigned to interview a brilliant forensic scientist at a high-security mental asylum. Dr. Hannibal Lecter agrees to help by using facts she tells him about the case to help construct a psychological profile of a vicious serial killer now on the loose.

However, his condition for doing this is her agreement to tell him about her unhappy childhood. Dr. Lecter is skillful at understanding the hidden motivations and vulnerabilities of the killer, and also of Clarice. There is a complication, though: he himself is an incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer.

I admire this novel because it is so well-written and exciting. At this same time, I hope Dr. Lecter is seen as so uniquely abnormal that he bears no possible similarity to other psychiatrists, a group sometimes disparagingly stereotyped as being disturbed individuals themselves.

This novel is about a criminal who is sent to a mental institution because he pretended to be insane in order to avoid going to prison.

The book, beautifully written and loved by many, aims to show the conditions at some state hospitals at the time it was written. The malignant Nurse Ratched personifies these conditions. The psychiatrist, in contrast, is caring and empathic and actually tries to help his patients.

An excellent movie by the same name is based on this novel. I like the fact that the psychiatrist in the film is played by the real-life psychiatrist who was the head of the state hospital where the movie was filmed. When working on my book, I did sometimes ‘act’ by pretending to be in a scene with Margo sitting in my own office and writing the dialog of a treatment session with her. Those chapters were the easiest for me to write.

Esther Greenwood, a bright and talented young woman, struggles with mental illness and thoughts of suicide.

The first psychiatrist she sees is unempathetic and prescribes a course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) without explaining it well beforehand, which frightens her and proves unhelpful. A serious suicide attempt sends her to several psychiatric hospitals. Finally, Esther comes under the care of Dr. Nolan, a caring, compassionate psychiatrist.

I like the way Dr. Nolan works effectively, explaining and then supervising another course of ECT and also providing psychotherapy. With such appropriate and skilled treatment, the results are good.

In Ordinary People, the boating-accident death of the older teenage son shatters the family.

Conrad, the younger son who was also on the boat, is tormented by self-blame for his brother’s death. After a suicide attempt and a psychiatric hospitalization, Conrad is released. He is still beset with guilt and depression and begins outpatient treatment with Dr. Berger, a blunt yet also an empathetic psychiatrist.

I like the way he helps Conrad reconsider his unrealistic guilt and helps him look at the limitations of his mother, a parent unable to provide him the warmth and support he needs. I like the way Dr. Berger is portrayed as caring and skilled, an example of how psychiatrists effectively treat their patients.

The heroine of the engrossing series, Lisbeth Salander, is a very fine computer hacker but has difficulty relating to others. Together with the journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she investigates crimes and corruption in the government.

I like the fast pace and interesting themes of these books. Lisbeth, who seeks justice for herself and others, is a very original and psychologically flawed heroine. What I don’t like is that in this series a major villain is the very bad child psychiatrist whose ‘treatment’ of Lisbeth was not to talk with her but simply put her in isolation and restraints.

In contrast, in my own novel I tried to demystify the work of psychiatrists by showing, in a realistic way, the process of making a diagnosis and a treatment plan that has the best interests of the patient in mind.