Factors Underlying Mental Orders Depicted in Pink Floyd’s The Wall

Podcast from The Clinic & The Person

The diagnosis and clinical management of various mental disorders are aided by knowing the predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating factors in a given case. Both the themed album and the full-length movie of Pink Floyd’s, The Wall, depict these factors in the course of the main character’s—”Pink’s”— mental health deterioration through music and film. In this episode, we draw from selected songs on the album and from selected scenes in the movie connecting the three factors with particular behaviors Pink manifests. In the process, we show how they are used in medical education and training in real time.

Joining us is Dr. Anthony Tobia, who is the campus chair in the Department of Psychiatry at the Rutgers School of Medicine and is also the Service Chief of Psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health in New Brunswick, NJ. Dr. Tobia is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is certified in internal medicine and psychosomatic medicine. He also holds a secondary appointment in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Rutgers. Dr. Tobia is the Director of Graduate and Interprofessional Education at Rutgers University Behavioral Health and has received the Outstanding Clinical Faculty Member Excellence Award in 2018 and 2019. He is an active contributor to the medical literature with publications, reviews, and abstracts. Dr. Tobia’s educational interests include the merging of popular culture and the field of behavioral medicine, which is evident from this episode and from his previous appearance on the podcast episode featuring The Who’s Tommy. Along with Dr. Tobia for this episode is Kevin Frederiks, who at the time of recording, was a fourth-year medical student at Rutgers.

Citations
For the recorded album: Pink Floyd. The Wall. Columbia Records, 1979.
For the movie: Parker, Alan, director. Pink Floyd The Wall. MGM, 1982.

Link
Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions here, or email to: ru***************@***il.com.

Thanks to Dr. Anthony Tobia and (by now) Dr. Kevin Fredriks for their interesting and insightful contributions to this episode. 

Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts.

Web image by Russel Teagarden

More from The Clinic & The Person

Heal Me: Childhood Trauma in The Who’s Tommy with Dr. Anthony Tobia

The Who’s Tommy is used to explore psychiatric trauma, with its iconic songs helping teach mental health concepts to students and professionals.

He Wants to Itch at It: A Novel, Play, and Movie Imagining Dementia

Through arts, dementia is imagined: a novel, a play, and film explore disorientation, denial, and emotional wilderness.”

When Neurons Get Tied Up in Knots: Human Fallibility and Folly in Asylum Psychiatry

Exploring mental illness through art and history: films, books, and blogs on lobotomies, psychiatry, and the search for cures.

I Hold You Still?: Poet Micheal O’Siadhail Explains Parkinson’s Disease in Sonnets

A poet’s sonnets capture the emotional and clinical journey of Parkinson’s, offering unique insights beyond conventional biomedical understanding.”