Review of “Movies and Mental Illness: Using Films to Understand Psychopathology,” 4th ed., by Danny Wedding and Ryan Niemiec, 2014.
(Abingdon, England: Hogrefe Publishing. Paper, 455 pages.)
This book has a variety of uses for helping persons suffering from the challenges of mental illness—in many forms and many disorders. Among the homeless in Chicago and other cities there are many persons suffering from illnesses of this sort. In a big city like Chicago, helpers, counselors, and social workers will see many afflictions and symptoms indeed.
Services for the mentally ill are simply not as advanced or available or as easy-to-locate as they could be. This is an understatement. And a great deal of the homeless population in this city (almost reaching 60,000 this year!) faces difficulties coping, troubles getting employed, and hopes of being accepted in society because of the mental illness factor.
It is hoped books and online materials educating the general public—and those of us who try to help on the streets—will be more numerous and available all the time. The book is great as a clear and straightforward guide to movies that profile and explain symptoms of many mental disorders. It is good for street helpers and for serious students of psychology.
This 4th edition brings us up to some recent movies indeed and gives the serious student of psychology a creative way to not only better understand psychopathology but also a great way to teach others about it. This is a book that has redeeming qualities. This is actually a book you will want to read to learn very interesting things from.
The authors make use of not only the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) but also the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). This basis in the most recent and relevant sources makes the book timely and suitable for courses, treatment, consulting, lecturing, designing workshops, and other uses.
The authors organize the book, that is to say the sections and chapters, principally by the disorders of the DSM-V. They have one or two major example movies and profile how the film can be discussed in terms of each disorder. They include several other films which could be said to fit the disorder, and they also explain why each film is—or is not—accurate on how the disorder acts, the challenges people face, the treatments used, and other important factors. They do show that many films detract from an understanding—such as the myth that people who have been in a mental institution must automatically be considered violent and dangerous.
Witness the Halloween films.
One thing I liked about the book is it explained the movie Bug to me (p. 50)… I had watched it and not known what in the world was going on. The movie stars Ashley Judd and Harry Connick, Jr. I guess the film makes sense to me now. The question of why anyone would want to make that movie in the first place had been bugging me. Haha.
Each chapter includes many examples of films and revealing and careful discussion of them and their portrayal—accurate or not—of persons suffering from the various disorders. The authors include foreign films also at the end of each chapter to give broader appeal and use to the book.
They include 8 appendices, with lists of recommended websites for learning more, portrayals of psychotherapists in films, and other information related to the purposes of the book.
I have conducted some presentations on the anxiety disorders and on resources for educators. I was glad to see some of my favorite films I considered portraying these illnesses well are listed in the book. The film Copycat, starring Sigourney Weaver, is profiled. Weaver plays a retired psychiatrist who cannot leave her apartment, suffering from agoraphobia. She is an expert on serial killers, and the police seek her advice about a murderer who appears to be using the methods of various famous killers from the past—hence the title of the movie.
A film I consider terribly important for explaining social phobia and most likely panic disorder is NOT in the book and this surprised me. The Scout, starring Brendan Frazer, does not appear anywhere in the text. Not a big-budget film, the movie nonetheless does a fairly good job of showing the feelings and fears of a young man who is fighting demons from the past that take the form of a huge group of screaming reporters at a press conference and the form of crowds in a baseball stadium now that he is an adult. Frazer does admirable work in this little movie. Diane Wiest plays the ultra-low-key smiling therapist who tries to “reconnect him” to the world. A film I have used in past presentations and classes, but which Wedding and Niemiec did not include…this was really the only problem I had with this excellent and important book.
I recommend the book, of course, and am excited to see this fourth edition of what has become a very popular volume. Intended as a textbook for an advanced undergraduate course in abnormal psychology, or a graduate one, this tome provides a wealth of information. Yes, I really said that. The book is particularly easy to use because the authors have not only organized the films by disorder but also included lists at the end so you can begin with a given movie and see if it is profiled and discussed in terms of a specific illness.
I think the book has an additional use as an excellent therapy device also. It can be used to help patients understand their disorders. Asking patients to watch a certain movie to better see how others have dealt with their challenges in a positive way (e.g., As Good As It Gets) can be beneficial. However, I will leave those details to the experts.
Yet another use is a reference for educators and counselors to better understand disorders through visual means.
It is easier to explain certain disorders such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder if somebody has first seen a movie such as As Good As It Gets. Then a discussion can follow in which the person wanting to learn more about the disorder can ask questions and come to their own comprehension.