Psychology: The All-Knowing Censor

In 1916, flanking Freud�s Hollywood invasion, psychologist Hugo M�nsterberg wrote The Photoplay: A Psychological Study, officially setting into motion psychology and psychiatry�s influence over cinema. M�nsterberg had studied under Wilhelm Wundt before heading Harvard University�s psychological laboratory in the late 1800s. �The [movie] screen,� he wrote, �ought to offer a unique opportunity to interest wide circles in psychological experiments and mental tests. ��

M�nsterberg was one of the first to suggest that psychologists, as self-appointed experts on the mind, should be hired to advise the film industry. Provocatively, he claimed that films could be �fraught with dangers� and that �the possibilities of psychical infection and destruction cannot be overlooked.�

More than 70 years later, his advice still echoes in the voices of his modern-day cohorts: �� Psychoanalytically informed criticism can be an extremely important aid to understanding the special hold that the movies have on audiences,� a 1987 book on psychiatry and the cinema asserted. And in 1990, Beverly Hills psychotherapist Carole Lieberman also promoted a censoring role for her ilk when she recommended in the Los Angeles Times that psychotherapists be used to provide �expert opinion regarding psychologically damaging content.� She employed an ominous threat of governmental action to obtain acceptance of her idea: �If the movie industry wants to retain the privilege of self-regulation and stem the dangerous tide of censorship � it needs to be more responsible.�

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