The Influential Trailblazer Who Inspired Mindhunter’s Dr. Wendy Carr
Though Mindhunter at times seems like a fictitious and twisted nightmare, the new Netflix series is very much rooted in reality. Though it’s been widely reported that the straight-laced protagonist Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) is based on real-life FBI agent John E. Douglas, another pivotal character was inspired by a living legend and trailblazer in her field.
According to Screenrant, the character of Dr. Wendy Carr (played by Fringe star Anna Torv) is based on Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, a pioneer in the treatment of trauma and abuse victims. In the 1970s, she cofounded one of the first-ever hospital-based counseling programs for rape victims at Boston City Hospital with sociologist Lynda Lytle Holmstrom. The two created the phrase “rape trauma syndrome,” which is still used to describe the psychological trauma…