The segments include powerful and memorable illustrations of different kinds of disorders, different treatments (often conducted by the originator of the treatment), experiments, historical events and procedures, and major clinical social issues such as deinstitutionalization and jailing people with mental disorders.
In addition, this video package includes reaction tapes -- brief video pieces in which an actress or actor talks directly to the student viewer, making comments that a client might make to a therapist or that a therapist might make to a client. Students may then offer their reactions to the statements in class discussions.
Description:
This television news report reveals that people with serious mental disorders are increasingly being jailed for minor criminal offenses, such as trespassing. The piece links this trend to the failures of deinstitutionalization and discusses why the trend continues.
Description:
The medical treatments used in mental hospitals during the first half of this century were crude, largely ineffective, and often unintentionally cruel. Some of the leading approaches are shown in this segment, including the wet pack, insulin therapy, metrazol therapy, and the lobotomy.
Description:
This video of a ward in a modern mental hospital reveals that hospital conditions today are more humane and activities more plentiful and interesting than those of the past. Yet, at the same time, it also shows that the atmosphere of today's mental hospital wards remains very distinct and the problems of many patients continue to be quite severe.
Description:
This segment shows a subject receiving a P.E.T. scan. It demonstrates both the machinery itself and the kinds of tasks performed during testing. The segment also shows and explains P.E.T. scan findings and compares the scans of schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic identical twins.
Relevant Lecture Topics:
Description:
In this segment, Dr. Daniel Weinberger compares the MRI scan of a schizophrenic person to that of his nonschizophrenic identical twin and points out that the ventricles of the schizophrenic twin are bigger than those of his nonschizophrenic identical twin.
Description:
In these two segments Dr. Aaron Beck, originator of cognitive therapy, treats a depressed woman. In the first segment (#6), Dr. Beck helps the client carefully examine her thinking and pinpoints those thoughts that are making her depressed. In the second segment (#7), Dr. Beck helps the client identify the precise thoughts, illogical thinking processes, and maladaptive attitudes that are causing her depression, and he actively challenges these thoughts and interpretations.
Description:
In this session of client-centered therapy, Dr. Carl Rogers tries to show unconditional positive regard, empathy, and genuineness to a woman who first came to see him because of concerns about her relationships with family members. In this segment from the 32nd therapy session, Rogers's warm acceptance and his continual restatements and reflections of what the client is saying help her become more in touch with and embrace her deepest private feelings of hurt.
Description:
This video segment centers on a man who has a phobic fear of riding on elevators. It reveals various aspects of his phobia, and highlights behavioral exposure therapy for phobias, as conducted within a self-help supportive group program.
Description:
These two segments center on two individuals with multiple fears. In the first segment (#12) they describe in powerful terms the symptoms and origins of their fears and their effects on them. The second segment (#13) describes their treatment by homeopathy, an alternative treatment approach that uses drugs made from natural substances.
Description:
This segment centers on a woman with a phobic fear of airplane travel. It reveals various aspects of her phobia, including the origins, and observes a special exposure treatment program developed for this problem.
Description:
Often, desensitization occurs in real life. In a lighthearted video, Professor Comer describes how he recently overcame his fear of dogs after being increasingly exposed to his family's dog, Annie, and then demonstrates how "comfortably" he now interacts with the dog.
Description:
These two segments focus on a woman with a major depressive disorder, who also displays psychotic symptoms as part of her depressive episode. The first segment (#16) finds her being interviewed during the height of her depressive episode, with strong suicidal ideation among other symptoms. In the second segment (#17) she is interviewed after recovery as a result of electroconvulsive therapy. The contrast is striking.
Description:
In this segment a woman is interviewed during a manic episode. Her symptoms include rushed speech and grandiosity.
Description:
In this segment, Dr. Max Fink applies and discusses electroconvulsive therapy. The segment illustrates what ECT is like today, including the use of medication to help persons sleep through the procedure, muscle relaxants to reduce thrashing, and oxygen, and the consequent reduction of the overt symptoms of the grand mal seizure. Dr. Fink also tries to explain ECT's effectiveness and describes the use of "maintenance" ECT.
Description:
This segment shows an experiment with human subjects whose findings suggest that the effectiveness of placebo drugs is partly a result of the patients' release of endorphins, their natural opioids. The implication is that, for some people, the expectation that a given treatment will soon be helpful causes them, without awareness, to release endorphins throughout their brain and body. In turn, the endorphins reduce their pain or help them to feel better in other ways.
Description:
This segment brings to life the well-known 1984 Glamour magazine survey of 33,000 women revealing that most women in our society, even underweight women, consider themselves overweight, particularly in body parts from the waist down, and diet regularly.
Description:
This segment focuses on a young woman with anorexia nervosa, including the issues of control and power in her disorder, origins of the disorder, cognitive and other features, and the impact of the disorder.
Description:
This segment focuses on a young woman with bulimia nervosa, including her binge behaviors and purge behaviors, origins of her disorder, cognitive and other features, and impact of the disorder.
One area of the hypothalamus that appears to help control hunger and eating behavior is the lateral hypothalamus, a brain area that produces hunger when it is activated or stimulated. If a person or animal has not eaten or has eaten too little, this part of the brain activates and the person experiences hunger and wants to eat. When researchers in this segment electronically stimulate the lateral hypothalamus in animal subjects, the subjects keep eating and eating, even when they have eaten recently and are biologically full.
Description:
The 10 brief videos in this segment are each reaction tapes brief videos designed to place students into the mind-set of a therapist or client so that they may experience how it feels when addressed in a certain manner or when certain issues emerge in therapy. These videos help students appreciate issues such as personal reactions of therapists or clients, power issues in therapy, boundary issues, and limits of confidentiality. The segments also help students consider various choices that may be available to therapists or clients and the implications of each of these.
In each reaction tape, students should take the role of a therapist (or client) on the receiving end of a particular communication and consider how the communication in question makes them feel, what issues it raises, and how they might respond.
Reaction Tape A: Elderly client questions value of therapy
This reaction segment shows an actress looking into the camera as if she were an elderly client talking to a therapist and questioning the value of therapy for her very real problems of aging.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Reaction Tape B: Teenage client questions value of therapy
This reaction segment shows an actor looking into the camera as if he were an adolescent client talking to his therapist and questioning whether therapy has been helping him.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Reaction Tape C: Client flatters therapist
This reaction segment shows an actress looking into the camera as if she were a client talking to her therapist and praising or flattering the therapist.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Reaction Tape D: Teenage client expresses anger at therapist
This reaction segment shows an actor looking into the camera as if he were a teenage client talking to his therapist and strongly expressing his anger at the therapist.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Reaction Tape E: Young adult client expresses suicidal thinking
This reaction segment shows an actor looking into the camera as if he were a young adult client talking to his therapist and unveiling suicidal thoughts or wishes.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Reaction Tape F: Young adult hints at desire to hurt someone
This reaction segment shows an actor looking into the camera as if he were a young adult client talking to his therapist and hinting at a desire to hurt someone.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Reaction Tape G: Therapist questions termination
This reaction segment shows Professor Comer looking into the camera as if he is a therapist talking to a client and subtly raising doubts about whether the client is ready to terminate therapy.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Reaction Tape H: Therapist criticizes client
This reaction segment shows Professor Comer looking into the camera as if he is a therapist talking to a client and raising questions about the client's level of motivation in therapy.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Reaction Tape ITherapist flatters client
This reaction segment shows Professor Comer looking into the camera as if he is a therapist talking to a client, flattering the client's attire and appearance.
Source:
Ronald Comer, 1995
Extended Reaction Tape J: Therapist addresses a client's anger, by Dr. Arnold Lazarus
In this reaction segment, Dr. Arnold Lazarus responds to a patient's anger during a therapy session. Students should consider Dr. Lazarus's handling of the situation. They might also consider how they, as a therapist, might react to the client's expression of anger and how they, as the client, might react to Dr. Lazarus's responses.
Source:
Clinical Choice Points in Psychotherapy, 1992 (Lazarus, Fay, & Lazarus)
Description:
In this segment several persons reveal the factors that contributed to their dependence on opioids, including recreational use, physical seduction of the drug, self-medication, and modeling.
Description:
This segment presents the emergence and increase in cases of substance dependence as largely a sociocultural phenomenon. Its avid and provocative sociocultural position offers an opportunity for discussion of the strengths, limitations, validity, and possible inaccuracies of a sociocultural model of substance dependence.
Description:
This segment looks at a methadone program during the rise of such treatment programs in the 1970s, and raises many questions about the philosophy, effectiveness, and impact of methadone treatment. At the end of the segment, even Dr. William Dobbs, a leading researcher in methadone treatment, raises questions about its effectiveness.
Description:
This group therapy session for persons with substance dependence, conducted at a self-help residential treatment program in Washington, D.C., in the 1970s, demonstrates the mixture of confrontation and support and the requirements of self-honesty that characterize many such programs. It also reveals the streetwise approach often used in treatment programs in urban settings.
Description:
In this segment two men are interviewed several years after recovery from substance dependence. These men, shown in previous segments while they were still dependent on substances, look and sound like different people. Their memories of their substance dependence and accompanying life style, and the road that led to their recovery, highlight the difficulties of recovery from substance abuse.
Description:
In this segment, a woman with schizophrenia experiences and describes in detail
hallucinations and their powerful impact upon her life.
Description:
In this segment, a young man with schizophrenia, a former police officer, sits down and talks to his father during a visit home from a mental hospital. During this interaction certain symptoms are apparent, including loose associations and inappropriate affect.
Description:
In this segment, a woman movingly describes her thoughts about and reactions to her son's psychotic symptoms. Her reaction, common to many such parents, contradicts the notions of a schizophrenogenic mother or double bind family communications, which were once the leading explanations for this disorder.
Description:
These two segments demonstrate both the good and the bad features of antipsychotic drugs. The first segment (#38) demonstrates the near-miraculous turnaround that occurs for some schizophrenic persons when they take antipsychotic medication. The man in this segment is seen as extremely confused and unable to verbalize effectively prior to taking a new drug. A month later, after the introduction of the drug, he is clear, coherent, and planning for a return to work.
The second segment (#39) reveals the undesired effects that may be brought about by these drugs, including extrapyramidal effects.
Description:
This segment, centered in New York City's Grand Central Station, shows the failure of deinstitutionalization for many people with schizophrenia who have become homeless without proper community treatment and care.
Description:
In this segment, people with chronic cases of schizophrenia and other disorders hold a therapy discussion group. The segment reveals their symptoms (including delusions, hallucinations, and loose associations), as well as their views of their disorders and their personal reactions to drug treatments.
Description:
In the late 1930s, the neuropsychiatrist Egas Moniz developed the lobotomy, a brain operation in which a surgeon would cut the connections between the cortex of the brain's frontal lobes and the lower centers of the brain. This segment from 1942 shows excerpts from a lobotomy procedure, done by the American neuropsychiatrist Walter Freeman. Parts of this segment are quite unpleasant to view.
Description:
This segment shows historical footage of patients before and shortly after their lobotomies. Although each case was pointed to as a success, it is obvious, looking back, that their postoperative behavior and functioning was hardly ideal or problem-free.
Description:
This segment shows the current state of some hospitalized patients who received a lobotomy in the past. It quickly reveals the lack of independence, loss of initiative, and other undesired effects often brought about by this procedure.
Description:
This segment displays features of autism, including early onset, social unresponsiveness, language and communication deficits, limited imaginative play, and self-stimulatory behaviors.
Description:
In this segment, Dr. Ivar Lovaas, a leader in the application of behavioral treatments for people with autism, treats a young child with the disorder, and relatively quickly helps change some of her dysfunctional patterns of behavior.
Description:
This segment first shows Ricky, a child with autism, learning to communicate in a behavioral treatment program 20 years ago. Then it shows Ricky today. During the intervening years, his treatment program, in which he had been making considerable progress, was stopped due to a lack of funding; thus, his adult functioning is considerably less than it might otherwise have been.
Description:
These segments focus on the rights of mental patients. In the first segment (#49), a patients' rights advocate prepares a patient for the next day's commitment hearing, to help ensure that the patient's legal and civil rights are upheld and that the patient's view is considered and his concerns addressed.
In the second segment (#50), a patients' rights advocate goes still further and raises the general notion that people have a right to hold false ideas without being labeled and without being forced into treatment.