Alienist
Alienist is an archaic term for a psychiatrist or psychologist. Despite falling out of favor by the middle of the twentieth century, it received renewed attention when used in the title of the 1994 novel
The Alienist by Caleb Carr. Although currently not often used, the term "alienist" is still used in psychiatric hospitals to describe those mental health professionals who evaluate defendants to determine their competency to stand trial. It is used in Joseph Conrad's novella
Heart of Darkness to describe the doctor in the Company headquarters in Belgium. It also appears in H.P. Lovecraft's 1927 novella
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward to describe the doctors who examine the protagonist during his stay at Dr. Waite's psychiatric hospital, as well as in his story
Beyond the Wall of Sleep. It is used by the fictional Dr. Simon Jordan when mentioning fellow psychiatrists in Margaret Atwood's
Alias Grace. More recently, see also Sebastian Faulks -
Human Traces . When Kris Kringle is put “on trial” in the 1947 film
Miracle on 34th street, several newspaper articles call the psychiatrists who examined him "alienists".