Erb, Cynthia. "Have you ever seen the inside of one of those places?" Cinema Journal 45.4 (2006): 45-63.

Following World War II, a series of scandals involving conditions of mental hospitals in the United States were portrayed in the media. In this article, Cynthia Erb discusses deinstitutionalization, a phenomenon and cultural reference of postwar to renovate hospital conditions, reduce the number of patients therein, and educate the public about serious mental illness. Pre-war films depicted mental illness and their institutions negatively. Following WWII, there was an explosion of interest in psychiatry and mental health. The rupture of the war, especially the numerous confrontation with traumas experienced by veterans, caused the people and culture to realize and accept that mental illness was more widespread than previously had been thought. Traumatic stress and nervous conditions were widely seen in these veterans. This caused a wave of interest in mental illness, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, which supply material for many postwar Hollywood films. Furthermore, the federal government encouraged deinstitutionalization due to financial pressures. Theater owners were also encouraged to invite hospital officials and psychiatrists to special screenings in order to inspire positive word of mouth from experts themselves.

The author of the article talks about how in Spellbound the illness of Ballentine is cured by psychotherapy, and the illness is used more so to advance the plot as opposed to films like The Wrong Man (1956), Vertigo (1958) contain long term mental illness that cannot be cured. This type of illness and the aftermath remains with the audience far after the film is over and has a stronger effect on them. Erb continues arguing about how there is only a single sequence of surrealism- the Dali dream. On the other hand, Hitchcock's later films have several surrealist sequences indicating the complexity of long-term illnesses.

From this article, we can see that Spellbound was one of the first steps in changing view of mental illness after WWII and the complexities of it, which are further elaborated in Hitchcock's later films.