Best Psychiatrist Scene in Movie History

Yes, this scene in particular gives me chills. This is the first time Joanna says out loud that what she fears is happening will result in her death. She can hear how insane she sounds, but terror drives her to try and explain it to seek help. She seems desperate but powerless to make the psychiatrist understand what she doesn't even understand. And she doesn't make sense to the psychiatrist, but Joanna's display of raw panic and dread alarm the psychiatrist enough to convince her that Joanna is in some kind of serious danger. I feel such an impending sense of certain doom and tragedy from that scene that it almost feels like she's already dead.

I'm so glad to see this mentioned here. That scene left an impression on me for most of my life. Brilliantly executed shot of silence between the two women left the audience with a false hope and a feeling of definite dread. I'm still horribly appealed at the Kidman remake of this film.

She creeped me out with her vacant pauses, I thought at first she might have been a robot working with the Men's Association.

Does anyone think the psychiatrist is part of the conspiracy? I would hope not. But I have seen a snippet in a book titled, Psychiatry and the cinema. It mentions the S. Wives. It says that a female psychiatrist seems to be part of a conspiracy to replace the women in a small Connecticut town.

One of my all-time favourite scenes. A credit to both actresses for making it so realistic and so chilling. I think it's more powerful (and sad) than the ending because you realize this is the last person Joanna will make a connection with and she is in critical danger.

The moment when the psychiatrists launches off her chair, kneels at Ross's feet, takes her arms and tells her to get her children and run as far and as fast as she can . . . it is chilling and brilliant! It's a stunner. Because she understood Ross really did have something to fear.


Life can be arbitrary and comes without a warranty.

the part where Joanna stops talking and the psychiatrist gets her to talk....is just riveting and beautiful.

Well spotted, this. ... Yes, splendid and wonderful Psychologist / Psychiatrist depictions. The doctor is a real life-and-blood human person, not a cardboard cookie-cutter sterile being.

Excellent point, and this thread is a heartening and insightful exchange.

thanks.

(By the way, last month i was at the glorious Lockwood Mathews Mansion (castle) that was the "Men's Association was filmed (inside and outside) - in Norwalk Connecticut. If you are ever there (it's near Stamford CT), it's highly recommended!)