Using the Movie Ordinary People to Teach Psychodynamic Psychotherapy With Adolescents

Abstract

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.