It was my coworker Regan who said I should interview Portland resident John Kerr. One day, she said, “You know John? Well, he wrote the book the new David Cronenberg movie is based on.”

Cue that “record scratch” sound effect.

Kerr’s acclaimed 1993 book “A Most Dangerous Method” — about the personal and professional relationship between pioneering psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung (and Jung’s patient and future psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein) — is the basis for Cronenberg’s new film “A Dangerous Method” starring Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley.

In a recent interview, Kerr spoke about how his scholarly book became a major Hollywood production, and how his work was adapted, and changed, in the process.

So how did your book become a Hollywood film?

I ended up working with (acclaimed director) Paul Schrader as a researcher for a play he was planning on Sabina Spielrein. She’d been literally a footnote in Freud and Jung’s history, but in the ’70s they discovered a whole box of documents they’d left behind, including diaries and letters to and from Freud and Jung.

We had access to things that hadn’t been published yet. It took eight years and I ended up with a hybrid book (also Kerr’s dissertation in clinical psychology) — on one hand it’s scholarly, but there are these juicy scandals inside of it. Then I was approached by Julia Roberts’ production company as a vehicle for her, which brought me together with (eventual “A Dangerous Method” screenwriter) Chris Hampton.

I thought he was extraordinary — he got the story and understood what I was saying. I thought, if anyone’s ever going to make a movie, he’s going to be the one to write it.

What are your thoughts on the film?

I’m the last person who should see it, in some ways, because it just starts my mind wandering back to debates and papers, and whether the whole story fits together. I will say I certainly like it and respect it; the performances are so good, and it’s such an attractive story visually. It’s amazing how much historical detail they got in.

How accurate would you say the film is?

Everything is grounded in reality, but I point to two scenes at the end of movie, one where (Spielrein) is talking to Mrs. Jung, and one of her talking to Jung himself. We don’t think either conversation ever happened, but they really capture, emotionally, the resolution that these people made of their situations. They’re my favorite scenes, but we know they didn’t happen that way.

Also, the film shows how important Jung is to Freud, but Jung is the one that put Freud on the map. Freud and Jung break up and then Freud takes psychoanalysis back; it would have saved a lot of headaches if they’d stayed together. Jung was more interested in finding empirical support for the theory, but instead it became what Freud wanted.

What effect do you think the film will have?

My real hope with the movie is that people will start talking about it with their analysts and the analysts will have to read the books — and won’t they be surprised. As for me, they’ve now printed more copies of the book than they ever sold in the first place. And the movie rights — that worked out well. Although because it was a European deal, it was all calculated in euros, so during the Greek debt crisis, suddenly I felt like a citizen of the world. I’d ask at Ruski’s, “How did the euro do today?” And get a lot of funny looks.

Dennis Perkins is a local freelance writer.