Psychology for Dummies (94 page)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
was released in 1975 and based on Ken Kesey’s book of the same name. The film stars Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy, a man who is involuntary committed to a mental hospital.

The thing that makes this movie a real contender for the Golden Cigar is the question of whether Nicholson’s character is really mentally ill. The film seems to be commenting on the mental health system during the time period within which the movie is set and how the system was used as a means of social control. Is Nicholson’s character mentally ill, or is he just a pain in the neck who has a problem with authority? There’s no doubt that Jack stands out and bucks the system every chance he gets, but does that make him sick? Maybe he just has a real zest for life.

For the acting, social commentary, and existential dilemma, I give this film five cigars! Definitely check this one out!

A Clockwork Orange,
based on the book by Anthony Burgess, was made in 1971 and stars Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge, a young troublemaker and delinquent. McDowell and his gang of three friends engage in various crimes and shenanigans, such as fighting, vandalism, skipping school, and the like. One night, they steal a car and go for a joy ride. They commit a horrific home invasion, raping a woman and brutally beating her husband. McDowell gets caught.

This is where the psychologically interesting part begins. McDowell is put through a rigorous behavior modification program that utilizes a technique called
aversion training.
After learning takes place, every time McDowell’s character is exposed to violence, he becomes violently ill. Therefore, he is compelled to avoid engaging in violence in order to avoid getting sick.

The film seems to pose a number of questions: Do we really want to resort to such tactics in reforming our criminals? Are we doing more harm than good? Is the level of violence in a society a function of a collective aversion to it or more a matter of the strong preying on the weak?

For the macabre nature of the film and its use of behaviorism, not to mention the social commentary on violence in society, I give this film five cigars!

12 Monkeys,
directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which Bruce is sent back in time to stop whomever spread a virus that destroyed the world.

The psychological crux of
12 Monkeys
is the question, “What is real?” How do we know if someone is really delusional or not? How can we prove that God really does speak to some people? Willis and Stowe develop what looks like a mental disorder known as
folie à deux,
a shared fantasy or delusion by two or more people.

The acting in
12 Monkeys
is great. Brad Pitt’s portrayal of a schizophrenic is outstanding. The questioning of reality is a complicated topic, but
12 Monkeys
pulls it off. Five cigars!

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!

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?,
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.

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!

This is the movie that made everyone want to go out, join the FBI, and become a
profiler.
Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins star in this psychological thriller that gets you inside the mind of a serial killer. Foster’s character, Clarise Starling, is an FBI agent who must deal with a famous psychiatrist/serial killer named Hannibal Lector, played by Anthony Hopkins. The movie centers on their interactions and the psychological games they play with each other in order to get what they both want. Hopkins plays doctor with Foster’s psyche, while Foster asks Hopkins to look inside and use his self-knowledge to help her catch a serial killer.

The movie’s strength does not really lie in its portrayal of a mentally ill psychiatrist, but more in its insight into how the human mind works and how we become who we are. The tragedy of Foster’s childhood makes being a profiler her destiny. The serial killer’s (Buffalo Bill) quest for transformation into his true self drives his horrendous murders. The real anomaly is Hopkins’s character. He seems to represent both the good and the bad aspects of the human psyche. He helps Foster, both as consultant and as healer, but he also demonstrates depravity and demonic insanity through acts of murder. It’s as if he is both the giver and the taker of life. His powerful knowledge of the human mind easily turned into a tool for murder.

Hannibal Lector represents what a lot of us fear — those we trust to help us can also hurt us. Five cigars!

Sally Field stars in this classic 1970s movie about multiple personality disorder (MPD). Field, playing Sybil, is a reclusive young woman who appears to be shy and quiet, but underneath the surface, a chaotic tangle of personalities swirls out of control. She ends up in the care of a doctor who begins to treat her for multiple personality disorder.

The scenes in which Field and her doctor are in therapy are very dramatic and disturbing. They’re intense! Sally Field’s performance is very powerful. It’s actually pretty hard to watch someone act so strangely. It gets a ten on the “Hair on the Back of My Neck Standing Up” scale. It gives me the willies! As she switches back and forth between personalities, the therapist begins to gain some insight as to how Field could have become so ill.

Field’s character was horribly sexually and physically abused as a child. The film presents the professionally popular idea that MPD is the result of the personality splitting off from itself in order to defend the core personality from the reality of the abuse. It does a good job of respecting this notion and stays a true course, not yielding to the temptation to get too “Hollywood.”

The strength of
Sybil
rests on three pillars: Sally Field’s acting, the emotional intensity of the therapy scenes, and the portrayal of the hypothesized cause of multiple personality disorder. Five cigars!

No list of great psychological movies would be complete without Alfred Hitchcock’s
Psycho.
Anthony Perkins stars as a depraved psychopath with a strange delusion that involves dressing up like his mother. Perkins’s character appears to suffer from a spilt personality in which part of his personality is his mother. How weird is that? The “psycho” in
Psycho
only kills one person in the entire movie, small potatoes by today’s standards, but Hitchcock’s use of suspense and surprise are superb.

Psycho
introduced the American public to the idea of a psychopathic killer, a man with a warped mind. On the outside, Perkins’ character is meek and socially awkward, a boy in a man’s body. He enjoys the voyeuristic thrill of an occasional peep at his motel customers. The suggestion is that underneath that calm exterior is a deranged killer waiting for his opportunity. But the key psychological component in
Psycho
is Perkins’s twisted relationship with his mother. He is the quintessential “momma’s boy,” unable to go out into the world on his own and enjoy the pleasures that he fantasizes about. Freud would have been proud of this twisted version of Oedipus in which Perkins’s mother, rather than the father, is the castrating threat. Perkins’s rage appears to be the product of his failure to be the king of his own castle, so to speak.

Psycho
is a classic. Don’t bother with the remake with Vince Vaughn — go rent the original. Five cigars.