Psychosomatic illnesses in Films

In Satyajit Ray's "The Chess Players", the British Resident General Outram is all set to annex the province of Oudh from the rightful ruler Nawab Wajid Ali Shah after a similar exercise in Sind.

The General is having a consultation with his physician Dr. Fayrer for an unspecified illness & casually discussing the political situation. He says "I don't like this damned business at all. It does not redound to our credit. We have even less justification here than we had in Sind. But our gracious Queen will have five million more subjects & a million pounds more in revenue."

"I don't like it at all, Feyrer & yet I have to go through with it. That is the problem & the reason for my complaint & there is nothing you can prescribe for it. Nothing at all."

In Fred Zinnemann's film "The Nun's Story", Sister Luke, a nurse & a "genius with the microscope", after an arduous training as a nun also, arrives in the Congo, which is her life's ambition. She assists Dr. Fortunati, an "exceptional" surgeon as she tells her father, who himself is the foremost surgeon in Belgium at that time.

Doubly driven, both by her convent in spiritual matters & by the surgeon, a workaholic, in the hospital, she contracts consumption. The surgeon, though a bachelor & an atheist, understands her soul's struggle more than her fellow Sisters & Mothers in the convent & tells her, "I have worked always with nuns as my nursing sisters, Sister, & you are not in the mould like them. You are perfect for the public & patients but not for the convent. You lack the spiritual obedience required. Your soul's struggle is your real problem & the TB is only a by-product. But I can cure the by-product if you want."

He does & she returns to Belgium. In both these cases, the psychosomatic origins of the illnesses are clearly identified, anticipating the later systemic theory of Fritjof Capra.