The producer, Ian Docherty, said he was somewhat shocked at the vehemence of their replies. There was a whole untapped resentment going on. Mark Salter, a psychiatrist at Homerton Hospital in Hackney, east London, said some of the screen stereotypes were positively damaging. All of these negative views are quite harmful beyond all the jokes and gags, because they put people off seeking help. Professor Glen Gabbard, a psychiatrist at the University of Kansas, and author of Psychiatry and the Cinema, said no professional group likes their presentation on screen.
Psychiatrists are no different.
It's just that we like to whine and complain more. The programme also airs the views of Dr Peter Byrne of the University of Kent at Canterbury, who is lobbying against the portrayal of mental illness in the forthcoming Jim Carrey film, Me, Myself and Irene. He said it was not the portrayal of psychiatrists that was damaging, but that of the mentally ill. You are more likely to be killed by a speeding police car than you are to be killed by a mentally ill person. With the recognition that all professions have a small minority who misuse their power, the unethical exploiter is a product of fear born in the cynical Nineties.