Psychiatry on the Stage: How Plays Can Enhance Our Understanding of Psychiatric Conditions

Psychology and theater have often intersected in the most interesting ways to describe characters, situations, and interactions. Neuroscience is in the process of discovering how the brain longs for patterns that we find in theater and other art forms, and practitioners in psychiatry frequently refer to literature and drama to better understand patients. For instance, the Oedipal complex was first illustrated in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, and Sigmund Freud largely derived his understanding of ...