The film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo"s Nest" portrays a man, named "MacMurphy," as portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who seems fundamentally in conflict with all of society. The mental hospital the Nicholson character is incarcerated in attempts to stifle the main character"s individuality, rather than to help him gain a better set of coping mechanisms to deal with his frustrations and anxiety about living. Rather than teaching individuals how to behave in more effective and socially productive manners, drugs and electroshock therapy, and finally lobotomies are used to keep individuality and bay and to curtain anger within the context of the mental hospital. The implication is that this is merely a more extreme reflection of the ways that the rest of society lobotomizes creative and soul-searching individuals.

             It is difficult to diagnose Mac Murphy because he is not technically certifiably insane. A competent practitioner never diagnoses him, nor does he ever let a mental health practitioner see his true, sane face. Rather the Nicholson character pretends to be insane to escape his prison sentence. MacMurphy has been dating a fifteen-year-old girl and is sentenced to prison for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. From these few details one could 'diagnose" the man"s disturbance as pedophilia or hyper-sexuality, or simply as poor impulse control. .

             The film portrays MacMurphy first attempting to empower the other prisoners, such as the catatonic schizophrenic Native American and the other misfits, by interacting with them as if they were sane. He teaches his fellow inmates to have fun by playing basketball and playing cards, rather than sitting around the hospital like zombies, zoned out in the sterile hostile environment on mind-controlling psychotropic drugs. This form of therapy seems to be more effective than the actual therapy that is being dispensed at the hospital-by enabling individuals, however maladjusted, to focus on simple, daily tasks, they are able to gain a better sense of their potential capabilities as sane and functioning human beings.