Images of psychiatry in recent Australian and New Zealand fiction.

Psychiatry is variously portrayed in Australian and New Zealand fiction. This paper describes mental health professionals, settings, conditions, treatments, and social themes essayed in 128 works by 103 authors, published between 1957 and 1992. The predominant images are negative or markedly ambivalent: possible reasons for this are discussed. The perception of psychiatry by the culture in which it is formed and located, as mediated by its creative artists, has important implications for psychiatrists' understanding and explication of their social role, and has an impact on patients' expectations and experiences of psychiatry.