Ten Great Psychological Movies Part 2

• Ordinary People

Ordinary People (1980), directed by Robert Redford and starring Timothy Hutton, Jud Hirsch, Donald Sutherland, and Mary Tyler Moore, is about a teenage boy recovering from depression and a suicide attempt following a boating accident that took his older brother’s life.

Ordinary People is an excellent story about how complex grief and depression can be and yet how much can be accomplished by taking things slowly and making them simple.

The acting is superb. The depiction of a mental disorder is excellent. Only one problem costs this movie a cigar. Psychiatrists rarely, if ever, do psychotherapy nowadays. Psychologists, social workers, and marriage and family counselors conduct most psychotherapy. Four cigars!

• Primal Fear

This film, directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Richard Gere and Ed Norton, Jr., is another film about reality. But instead of presenting a doctor trying to convince a patient that the patient is ill, this movie is about a patient who tries to convince a doctor that he, the patient, is ill. Say what?

The only thing wrong with this movie is the use of a neuropsychologist as the expert witness in this case. Neuropsychologists do not typically testify in cases involving insanity unless the issue of brain damage is at issue. Dissociative identity disorder is not a typical subject for neuropsychologists. Other than that one flaw, this movie easily deserves four cigars!

• What About Bob?

What About Bob?, starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfus, is a farcical comedy about the doctor-patient relationship in psychotherapy. This movie is not quite as deep as the previous selections, but it tells the story of mental disorders from a different perspective, that of the therapist.

One of the more serious questions that this movie asks is exactly what does someone with a mental disorder really need? Do they need cold and abstract therapy or just a real connection with a family that helps them get over their fears and feel safe?

What About Bob? belongs on this list because it takes a light-hearted approach to the serious issues of anxiety, professional relationships, and therapist sanity. Listening to people’s problems all the time can be stressful. It can take a toll. Therapists need a life of their own where they can get away from their work. Murray is a therapist’s worse nightmare, the patient who won’t go away. The situation is funny and scary at the same time. But Murray could teach a lot of therapists a lesson — don’t forget to address the more mundane aspects of your clients’ and patients’ lives. Simplicity may be the key. The only problems with the movie are the potential to downplay the seriousness of the type of behavior that Murray’s character exhibits and, again, the portrayal of the psychotherapist as a psychiatrist, and M.D. Psychiatrists don’t typically do psychotherapy any more.

Despite its shortcomings, and that it’s a goofy move, What About Bob? deserves four cigars.

• Girt, Interrupted

In Girl, Interrupted, Winona Ryder plays a depressed and suicidal young woman admitted to a mental hospital. She’s reluctant about being there and resists many of the efforts by the staff to help her “get better.”

The movie contrasts the characters’ lives and afflictions as a way to demonstrate that middle-class suburban angst is small potatoes when compared to other more serous illnesses. At the same time, the film doesn’t minimize Ryder’s difficulties, but instead it appears to place them in perspective. Developing a new perspective is a turning point for Ryder’s character — her life is simply being interrupted. She won’t let her life end in the institution due to a failure to deal with her problems.

The moral of the story is that Ryder’s character was fortunate to have made it out alive, merely taking a detour into mental illness instead of permanent residence. It’s a very personal story. It’s a story about hope and the harsh reality of some people’s lives. Five cigars!

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Ten Great Psychological Movies Part 2

• Pleading Insanity
• Ten Great Psychological Movies Part 1
• Assessing the Problem and Testing Your Psyche
• Taking Down the History
• Going Beyond Stress: The Psychology of Health
• Pleading Insanity
• Taxonomizing Symptoms and Disorders
• Getting sick of being worried
• Figuring Out the Criminals with Forensic Psychology
• Getting Comfy on the Couch
• Personality Testing