PSYCHIATRISTS HAND OUT FILM AWARDS: THE `SHRINKIES'

PSYCHIATRISTS HAND OUT FILM AWARDS: THE `SHRINKIES'

SAN FRANCISCO (Wireless Flash) -- "American Beauty" is not only the Oscar front-runner, it's also a top pick of San Francisco's psychiatrists. Each year at Oscar time the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute hands out its "Shrinkies" awards to films that show how folks deal with mental illness. "American Beauty" wins an award for showing how people can overcome emotional brutality and stereotypes. Other Shrinkie winners include... -- "Being John Malkovich," which, the shrinks say, shows "identity conflict in a still adolescent soul." -- "Boys Don't Cry," which demonstrates how intolerance brutalizes one person's gender identity dilemma. -- And, finally, "Girl, Interrupted" gets a Shrinkie for showing how the health system helps and harms the struggle against psychosis.