Issues In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Modern Problems from Historic Sources: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a film from 1975 that is based on a book written in 1962. It follows the story of Randall P. McMurphy, played by Jack Nicholson, who is sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. While this movie is a fictional work, it highlights some of the problems looming over the field of psychiatry today, such as the power structure, invasive treatments, and even determining if a patient is actually insane. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest received all 5 major academy awards, and it reflects the antipsychiatry movement present in the 1960s (Pepper). By examining some of the events and characters in this film, the problems within the field of

He actually believes mental illness to be a myth created by the psychiatric community in order to impose controls and morals upon those who might stray from societal norms. He contrasts mental illness to physical illness in stating “The notion of mental symptom is therefore inextricably tied to the social (including ethical) context in which it is made in much the same way as the notion of bodily symptom is tied to an anatomical and genetic context” (Szasz). This profound statement is to say that in the same way that physical anomalies are compared to the norm of healthy human anatomy, mental anomalies are compared to ethical and social norms. Schizophrenia cannot be seen in the brain in the same way that a broken bone can be seen in the body, so behaviors or symptoms are compared to those which are “normal” in a social and ethical context. While it is not a commonly held belief that mental illness is actually a myth, Szasz makes a good point about how the field of psychiatry is more subjective than other medical fields because social and ethical norms vary even from person to person. Different psychiatrists can give the same person different diagnoses. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the audience can clearly determine that McMurphy, while amoral,

It would be a tall order (and a quite impossible one) for the entire system of care to be torn down and replaced. Rather paradoxically, the easiest way to fix the current system is to shift society’s thinking surrounding mental illness, because psychiatry as a practice reflects society. Many of these problems are leftover from a time when mentally ill individuals were seen as less than people. If you imagine that the patients are animals, it makes sense why doctors spend less time with them than nurses. It’s below their pay grade. It makes sense why invasive and sometimes inhumane treatments are used on patients: they don’t feel pain in the same way and do not have the same autonomy. Ultimately, it makes sense why the line between sane and insane is so blurred: doctors do not listen to a patient’s self-evaluation; rather, they compare the patient’s behaviors and experiences to their own “normal.” In this scenario, the patient does not have the autonomy or self-awareness to determine that what they’re feeling is normal or abnormal, so the psychiatrist’s frame of reference provides the only answer. While most people today’s society does not view mentally ill patients as subhuman, these avoidant and misguided practices in the field have persisted because there is still a societal avoidance when discussing mental illness.