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Academic Psychiatry 23:174-179, September 1999
© 1999 Academic Psychiatry


Media Column

Using the Movie Ordinary People to Teach Psychodynamic Psychotherapy With Adolescents

Frederick C. Miller, M.D.

Dr. Miller is Director of Psychiatry Residency Training, Albert Einstein Medical Center; and faculty, the Institute of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Miller, Albert Einstein Medical Center, 5501 Old York Road, Philadelphia, PA 19141; E-mail: Millerfr{at}aehn2.einstein.edu

Most movies provide rich examples of bad psychotherapy. A few movie psychotherapies are so accurate and well done that they can be used, like process notes, to teach psychiatric residents and other students the major principles and techniques of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Ordinary People is one such movie, in which the treatment of a severely depressed adolescent boy is portrayed. By using a summary of the "patient's" background and the transcript of one vignette from the movie "psychotherapy," a method is discussed for teaching many of the principles and techniques of psychodynamic psychotherapy with adolescents, including 1) transference and resistance; 2) neutrality and the real object; 3) slips of the tongue and the observing ego; 4) unconscious conflict expressed somatically, and making it conscious; 5) the role of education; 6) open- and closed-ended interpretations and gratifying or frustrating patients; and 7) multiple determination of symptoms and the working-through process.

Key Words: Psychotherapy • Teaching • Media




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