"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" w/ Dr. Sulman Mirza (@thekicksshrink)

Welcome back to Analyze Scripts, where a psychiatrist and a therapist analyze what Hollywood gets right and wrong about mental health. Today, we are joined by triple board certified psychiatist Dr. Sulman Mirza AKA @thekicksshrink. We are blown away by the lasting impact of this movie from 1975 on the field of psychiatry and psychology. We discuss the sociopathy of Randle McMurphy and the iconic villain, Nurse Ratchet. We wrap it up with our frustration in the field, both in the past and present...like with lobotomies, ETC depictions, ODD diagnoses and more. We hope you enjoy!

Instagram

Tik Tok

Website

Dr. Katrina Furey MD: Hi, I'm Dr. Katrina Fieri, a psychiatrist.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: And I'm Portia Pendleton, a licensed clinical social worker.

Dr. Katrina Furey MD: And this is Analyze Scripts, a podcast where two shrinks analyze the depiction of mental health in movies and TV shows.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Our hope is that you learn some legit info about mental health while feeling like you're chatting with your girlfriends.

Dr. Katrina Furey MD: There is so much misinformation out there and it drives us nuts.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: And if someday we pay off our student loans or land a sponsorship, like.

Dr. Katrina Furey MD: With a lay flat airline or a major beauty brand, even better. So sit back, relax, grab some popcorn and your DSM Five and enjoy. Welcome back to Analyze scripts. We are so excited you're joining us today for an episode about the classic, I guess I think in a Bad Way film, one Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. We're thrilled to be joined by Dr. Sulman Merza, who is a triple board certified psychiatrist with expertise in psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, and addiction medicine. I would call that a triple threat. He completed his psychiatry residency at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. His Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at the University of Maryland and Shepherd Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He's had the privilege to work in a variety of settings, from inpatient psychiatric units with medical capabilities to the classrooms of Baltimore City Public schools. He's learned from some of the leaders and pioneers in the field of psychiatry, and his experiences have allowed him to develop a deep understanding of neuropsychiatric conditions in both children and adults. And he has a keen knack for the Internet, and you can find him at the Kick Shrink on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And I have to say, Sulan, I love your videos. I feel like they're very visually appealing. But also the content is so great. You really have a way of putting out a lot of really accurate, detailed information in a really entertaining, easy to digest way, and I think that is really hard to do. So I just want to give you some props for that. I don't know if we still say props, but I feel like I'm really impressed. We can still say that. No, I'm really honestly impressed. I feel like you have themes where you do medication. Saturday, I'm not going to remember all the names off the top of my head, but then there's like, historical lessons. There's a lot of good info about ADHD I've told you offline. I love your stuff about WWE. I think it's really great. So I hope everyone goes to check them out.

Dr. Sulman Mirza MD: Yeah. Thank you both for having me on here. Really excited I came across you guys, I was like, oh, my God, I love the movies and entertainment and pop culture. And I was like, this is and I love kind of bringing psychiatry psychology into all of that because so much of that is present. So I was like, let's see if we can collaborate on something.

Dr. Katrina Furey MD: Yeah. No, we're thrilled.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: And we chose this movie and book. So the book came out in 1962 with the movie 1975. I had never seen this movie, but I had heard of it, which I think is part of our discussion with how powerful this was that kind of shaping people's views of psychiatry inpatient care and treatments.

Dr. Katrina Furey MD: Right, right. I think it's so true. We were talking about with Dr. Jesse Gold in our most recent episode about season two of Yellow Jackets, which has another awful scene about ECT. Again, just how this film has permeated through our culture. Even if you haven't seen it, like, you're saying you haven't seen it, but you know of it, and it's like it's had this really long lasting, unfortunate impact, which is ironic because apparently it won a Bazillion. Academy Awards, made a lot of money, it was very well received, it won all these awards, and yet it was awful in terms of its portrayal of mental health care.

Dr. Sulman Mirza MD: Yeah. The history of film, it's one of the few movies that has ...