About this item
Humans have experienced the emotion of horror since the beginning of our existence. Society's perceptions of mental illness have inspired film portrayals of monsters, ghosts, demonic possession, zombies, and psychopaths. This book introduces a way to engage learners in understanding psychiatry through horror films. It guides the reader on a journey of interpreting horror films from psychological, medical, artistic, and philosophical points of view.
About the Author
Fernando Espi Forcen was born and raised in Murcia, Spain. After graduating from Medical School, he moved to the United States to pursue training in General Psychiatry at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, OH. Following he moved to the Windy City and finished a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The University of Chicago. During this fellowship, he founded "The Journal of Humanistic Psychiatry." This publication attempts to fill the current gap in literature between humanities and psychiatry. He finalized his training with a fellowship in Psycho-Oncology and Psychosomatic Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. More recently he obtained a PhD at the University of Murcia titled "Demons, Fast and Death: The Approach to Mental Health in the Late Middle Ages." His dissertation combines the disciplines of Psychiatry and Art History.
Fernando's interest in cinema and particularly in the horror film genre started early in childhood. While still a kid he watched with his father and brother "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari." After this experience he became somehow transfixed by horror, a passion that followed him during his adolescence and adulthood. While in medical school he continued to pursue his interest in humanities. His identical twin brother is an Art History Professor and his favorite teacher. Together, they presented on Psychiatry and Art History at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco and have co-authored a number of papers in peer reviewed journals such as "Demonic Possessions and Mental Illness;""The Practice of Holy Fasting in the Late Middle Ages" and "Ars Moriendi: Coping with Death in the Late Middle Ages."
Fernando's major interests are cinema, philosophy, art, history and rock´n´roll music. He lives now in Chicago where he is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center.
