Caught in a downward spiral … Rose Byrne (Linda) in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Photograph: Logan White/If I Had Legs LLC View image in fullscreen Caught in a downward spiral … Rose Byrne (Linda) in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Photograph: Logan White/If I Had Legs LLC Film Shrinks on the verge of a nervous breakdown: how horror movies came for therapists From Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You to Jodie Foster in A Private Life, an onscreen parade of psychoanalysts are unravelling before us, tapping into our worst fears
Prefer the Guardian on Google T here is an old adage that “every therapist needs a therapist”. Even while the treatment was still in its infancy, Sigmund Freud said all psychoanalysts should “submit” themselves to being analysed. Recent cinema has been acutely aware of that painfully unbreakable cycle. In the likes of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You , Mary Bronstein’s hallucinatory Rose Byrne vehicle in which she plays a therapist and floundering mother caught in a downward spiral, or 2022’s Smile , in which a psychiatrist (Sosie Bacon) is pursued by a malignant metaphor for her poor mental health, therapists are as much at the mercy of their traumas as anyone else.
Rather than being relegated to supporting character status, as they long have been in everything from Good Will Hunting (1997) to The Sopranos , film is finally giving therapists their moment on the couch. Within the space of a month in UK cinemas, two more trick cyclists are taking on lead roles. Backrooms sees Renate Reinsve totally unravel from a secure, calm and collected psychiatrist and self-help author (albeit one who lives alone and subsists on a diet of lacklustre ready meals) to a nervous wreck attempting to navigate the uncanny corridors of her own mind. Meanwhile in Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life , a Francophone Jodie Foster takes on the role of shrink turned sleuth, deciding to investigate the death of a former client without realizing she is trying to make up for her shortcomings as a spouse and parent.
View image in fullscreen Navigating the uncanny corridors of her own mind … Renate Reinsve (Mary) in Backrooms The trigger behind this new onscreen parade of ailing therapist protagonists is in some ways obvious: more people are having therapy than ever before. A 2026 survey found that 37% of adults in the UK were seeking out their services, a 2% increase on the previous year. Despite being stigmatised a matter of years ago, therapy is now being branded “sexy”. The rise of the therapy influencer, or “TherapyTok”, has allowed these professionals and their jargon to transgress the boundaries of the therapist’s room into mainstream culture. Multiple podcasts have been dedicated to the topic, from pop-psychotherapist Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin? to the true-crime slash therapy podcast The Shrink Next Door, which may have provided inspiration to Zlotowski. Then reality television started to gleefully break with client confidentiality, with Couples Therapy, all contributing towards pushing the practice to the epicentre of the collective consciousness.
View image in fullscreen A shrink with shortcomings … Jodie Foster (Lilian Steiner) and Virginie Efira (Paula Cohen-Solal) in A Private Life. Photograph: Altitude Film Distribution/PA Even so-called therapy-speak has transferred into cinema. The critic Billie Walker points out dubious use of the lingo in psychiatric spinoffs of franchises such as the Nicolas Cage vampire flick Renfield (2...