Catatonia is often dramatically portrayed as a condition that belongs in horror movies, presenting someone as completely motionless or immobile for shock value. But it’s more than being “unresponsive.

During his third-year psychiatry clerkship as a medical student, Zach Rosenthal, MD, Ph.D., was part of a team providing care to a young man with schizophrenia and severe catatonia. For the first time ...