The Chateau

Graham to Isabelle: "Fichel is my therapist. He says sometimes I rely on it to much, but I kinda don't agree with that. I think that I can get a lot from it... Are you in therapy? No. Of course you're not." (0:37)

Graham talks to Dr. Fichel on the telephone: "Dr. Fichel, it was so incredible... but I screwed it up as usual... got off track like I tend to do... getting all into my head and I could tell she didn't want to go there... wasn't listening..." (0:38) More telephone psychotherapy: (0:54, 1:03)

psychotherapy

The Maid

Spoiler alert!

Family crisis: Raquel, the maid for 20 years, has become part of the family with no life or connections outside. She favors the sons over the oldest, daughter Camila, sometimes protecting the sons and deliberately provoking Camila. (Why?) Pilar, the mother, seems to ignore the fact that Raquel has scratched out Camila's face from photos in her diary. For reasons at which we can only guess, Raquel has either rejected, or has been rejected by, her family of origin. Her whole life is wrapped up in her work, so when Pilar threatens to disrupt her attachment to the family by hiring another helper she desperately turns to sabotage.

The first newcomer, Mercedes, young and passive, folds under the pressure and leaves in a few days. Tough Sonia takes Raquel on with confrontation which fails. Lucy, however, accomplishes with a few brilliant interventions of emotional jujitsu and heart felt caring what psychotherapists dream of doing for their patients, and with no training, only instinct, perhaps instilled by her own loving family. The turning point occurs in a kind of situation unavailable in a psychotherapy office, but perhaps a skilled psychotherapist could coach a patient in connecting with, rather than butting heads with, their own Raquel. Could Mercedes or Sonia, with such coaching, connect with Raquel as did Lucy?

In a few scenes Raquel cleans up after the newcomer maids with chlorine bleach. Does this reflect exaggerated fear of germs, or another attempt at sabotage? Raquel suffers two episodes of syncope, but while a relationship to stress is implied we never know the diagnosis.

In the end, just as the family begins to enjoy relief from conflict, Lucy announces plans to leave. Raquel, clearly disappointed, nevertheless has identified with Lucy, and instead of acting out, takes up Lucy's habit of jogging (sublimation?).

How would you diagnose Raquel? How might a Lucy end up seeking help? Would this qualify as a corrective emotional experience for Raquel? If Raquel were your patient, might you encourage her to move toward her family of origin? Lucy may have missed her calling. If she were to pursue a career as a psychotherapist, which school or method would suit her best?

corrective emotional experience | psychotherapy

American Violet

The film contains numerous brief references to drugs, mostly crack cocaine, and drug dealing.

During a deposition attorney Sam asks a police officer about drugs and drug testing in relation to his use of Eddie as an informant. But we never see any evidence of his mental illness. (1:10)

Eddie admits in deposition, "I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia." (1:08)

Police officer admits in deposition to knowing that "Eddie Porter is crazier than a 3 dollar bill." (1:11)

cocaine | drug

The Best of Youth

Spoiler alert!

Disk One:

Matteo takes a job at a psychiatric hospital where his employer describes the treatment offered, "The scientific term is logotherapy." He assigns Matteo to take patient Giorgia on walks outside the facility. (0:08)

Matteo shows photographs of Giorgia to his medical student brother Nicola, pointing out burns from electroconvulsive therapy. (0:21)

A neighbor in the town where Giorgia grew up tells the brothers about her, suggesting that her problems may have stemmed from the early loss of her mother. He describes her "obsessions," "She cleaned everything. When she was done she'd start again." (0:35)

Matteo and Nicola express concern to Giorgia's father about the electroshock treatments, but he still wants to return her to the clinic. (0:40)

Matteo reads a letter from Nicola indicating he may specialize in psychiatry when he returns: "She shouldn't be left with people who use electroshock." (1:13)

Nicola, now apparently a psychiatrist, helps a group of patients testify in court against a psychiatrist accused of mistreating them with inappropriate use of electroconvulsive therapy. (1:50) One of the patient's is unable to speak. Another patient relates that he was treated for alcoholism with electroconvulsive therapy. (1:54)

Nicola explains to his father Angelo that homosexuality is not an illness. (1:57)

Nicola, accompanied by police, inspects a psychiatric hospital where patients lie in filth, restrained to their beds. (2:19) Nicola finds Giorgia tied in her bed. She shows no indication of recognizing him or even that another person is close to her. (2:21)

Nicola explains to Matteo his photograph of Italian reformist psychiatrist Franco Basaglia. (2:34) Nicola takes Matteo to visit Giorgia in the hospital. He explains, "Doctors used to diagnose them all as schizophrenics." (2:35)

Nicola's wife Giulia tells the brothers their father has died. Matteo even more than Nicola is overcome with grief. (2:40) The funeral. (2:42)

Disk Two:

At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve Matteo removes his shoes and lets himself fall to his death from the balcony of his apartment. Family members grieve his death. (1:05)

A nurse tells Nicola at the hospital that Giorgia wants to see him. After he tells her that Sara's mother Giulia was arrested he tries to tell her that Matteo has died, but all he can say is, "Matteo. Matteo." To comfort him Giorgia touches Nicola's shoulder. (1:17)

Matteo's mother Adriana, grieving the loss of Matteo, cannot sustain attention to her job as a teacher. (1:21)

Nicola conducts a psychiatric evaluation of a prisoner who asks, "Are you here to declare me insane?" (1:36)

In Nicola's office he and Giorgia look at a photograph of Matteo taken by Matteo's lover Mirella. Nicola tells Giorgia she has long been ready to leave the hospital. (1:42)

Giorgia elopes from the hospital, and we see her walking across railroad tracks. (1:45)

Nicola finds Giorgia. He tells her he will not readmit her to the hospital, drives her to her new apartment, and they hug. (1:48)

Nicola, apparently teaching resident psychiatrists, leads a group of children. He asks a boy to read a letter that has just been delivered to him. The letter announces the death of Adriana. (2:26)

Did Nicola or even Matteo violate professional boundaries in their relationships with Giorgia? What motivated Matteo to kill himself? What might have gone wrong in his family during his childhood to explain his temperament or his suicide?

Franco Basaglia | Bereavement | boundaries | electroconvulsive therapy | independent psychiatric examination | mutism | psychiatric hospital | psychiatrist | psychiatry | suicide

Roman Holiday

Princess Anne becomes hysterical as her aid reads the schedule of another grueling day. Dr. Bonnachoven brandishes a syringe while telling her the "completely harmless" new drug will relax her and make her feel "a little happy." She manages to remain awake long enough to travel some distance from the embassy, but after reporter Joe Bradley finds her asleep by the sidewalk she remains either asleep, or in an intoxicated state Joe mistakes for drunkenness, until next morning. (0:11) She says the "dizziness is getting worse." (0:25)

What injectable sedative-hypnotic might a doctor have described as new circa 1953?

hysteria | sedative-hypnotic

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Barely visible, even with high definition, but chiseled into the rock stairs: "12 X 12 X 12 Step Program" (0:07)

Might the narrative psychotherapist's mantra be: "You can't stop stories being told."? (Dr. Parnassus to devil Nick; 0:22)

"Charity" man Tony cannot recall his name after he sits up too fast and knocks himself out. (0:30)

Parnassus is supposed to be immortal, but least it looks like suicide: Diminutive performer Percy restrains Dr. Parnassus from jumping from a rock. (0:54) Dr. Parnassus hangs himself. (1:47)

amnesia | concussion | narrative psychotherapy | suicide | twelve steps

Coco Before Chanel

Coco tells her lover Balsan that horseback riding kept her from killing herself. (0:36)

Coco learns that her lover "Boy" has died in a motor vehicle accident and, grieving, visits the site of the accident. (1:38)

bereavement | suicide

Moon

Spoiler alert!

Sam has no memory of the accident. (0:18)

Robot Gerty administers psychological tests to Sam then explains that he may have suffered "brain damage." "This would explain your slight memory loss and logic impairment." (0:21)

Sam discovers another man who Gerty identifies as another "Sam Bell" who may have suffered a "slight concussion." (0:30)

Sam I grieves after his daughter tells him that his wife Tess died years ago. (1:08) Sam II plays back Sam I's log, and he too grieves after hearing and seeing his daughter tell that his wife Tess died years ago. (1:14)

amnesia | Bereavement | psychological testing

Sunset Boulevard

Spoiler alert!

Actress Norma tells writer Joe, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." (0:16)

Butler Max tells Joe that a maharaja came all the way from India to get one of Norma's silk stockings then used it to strangle himself. (0:25)

Max tells Joe, "Madame has moments of melancholy. There have been some attempts at suicide... no sleeping pills, no razor blades. We shut off the gas in her bedroom." (0:39)

Max tells Joe, "Madame got the razor blade from your room, and she cut her wrists." (0:51)

Joe finds Norma lying in bed, both wrists in bandages and repeats the newspaper headlines he imagines, "Great Star Kills Herself for Unknown Writer." She responds, "I'll do it again." And repeats herself twice more. (0:53)

Norma tells Joe, "I bought myself a revolver. I did. I did. I stood in front of that mirror, but I couldn't make myself do it." (1:33)

Joe tells the actress, "You'd be killing yourself to an empty house." (1:41)

Even before she shoots and kills Joe, Norma appears distracted. (1:42) Joe speculates about her using a "temporary insanity" defense in court. (1:44) Hedda Hopper describes the star as in a state of "state of complete mental shock." (1:45) Norma appears deluded as she orders Max to "Tell Mr. DeMille I'll be on the set at once." Even before she exposes herself to the trauma of killing Joe Norma appears ignore evidence of reality. Does this constitute delusion or just denial? In the moments after she kills Joe she expresses no grief or remorse. Ultimately does she suffer from traumatic dissociation?

dissociation | narcissism | Narcissistic Personality Disorder | suicide

Starting Out in the Evening

Author Leonard tells his daughter Ariel, "You'd be a wonderful therapist yourself." (0:12)

Ariel must have children, but her romantic partner Casey does not want children. What must happen for the couple to resolve this conflict? We know much about Ariel's family of origin and almost nothing about Casey's. What might have happened in his upbringing to make this so important? How do the ways in which Casey is similar to and different from Ariel's father draw her to Casey? How did Leonard's response to the loss of Ariel's mother affect his parenting? What other sources of conflict might contribute to this couple's predicament?

What are some systemic interventions that could help this couple resolved their conflict if they came to you for psychotherapy?

Bereavement | families of origin | family systems

9

Judging from the look of pleasure on his face 8 appears to derive a "high" from holding a horseshoe magnet against the top of his head. Android intoxication? TMS? (0:42, 0:44)

His friends grieve as they lay 2 to rest in a boat and push him out on the water. (0:49)

Bereavement | Intoxication | repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation

Sexy Beast

Don, and to a lesser extent Teddy, appear to meet most of the criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Antisocial Personality Disorder | sociopathy

Mary and Max

Spoiler alert!

Said to be based on a true story, lonely 8 year old Australian girl Mary surprises 44 year old Max, a New Yorker with Asperger's, with a letter.

Mary says her mother Vera told her Mary's birth was an accident. (0:05) Vera drinks alcoholically and steals compulsively. (0:06)

Max writes Mary that he has attended an Overeaters Anonymous meeting (0:14), but later he admits the meetings are not working. (0:35) He says he is "trying to lose weight because "my psychiatrist Dr. Bernard Hazelhof says a healthy body equals a healthy mind." We see the psychiatrist performing a hand stand on his desk (0:16). Max writes that the psychiatrist tells him he should, "never eat anything bigger than your head." (0:34)

Max tells what it’s like to be Max. How accurately does he describe what it’s like to be an Aspie?

• can't understand "nonverbal signals."
• copes with stress by standing on a stool in a corner. (0:15)
• is good with numbers. (0:22)
• "People often confuse me." (0:23)
• eats the same food every Monday, Tuesday, etc. but on Saturdays he creates his own recipes, and on Sundays soup prepared by his neighbor Ivy. (0:34)
• "cannot understand how being honest can be improper. Maybe this is why I don't have any friends." (0:36)
• experiences anxiety about love which led him to give someone an inappropriate gift. He "felt love but couldn't articulate it." (0:41)
• lists even more typical traits after he writes Mary that Asperger's is his diagnosis. He says Dr. Bernard Hazelhof told him his "brain is defective." (0:51)
• wishes he could “cry properly.”
• invents neologisms: confuzzle, smushable, etc
• but he writes,  "I like being an Aspie." (0:54)

Max says his mother "shot herself with my uncle's gun when I was 6." He says his only friend, Mr. Ravioli, is invisible, but Dr. Hazelhof says, "I don't need him any more, so he just sits in a corner and reads." We see Mr. Ravioli reading I'm OK you're OK. (0:18) He writes that Mr. Ravioli is a much safer friend. (0:45)

Max writes Mary that "[cigarette] butts are bad because they wash out to sea... fish become nicotine dependent." (0:19)

Max writes that he was rejected from jury duty "because they found out I'd been a mental patient..." (0:21)

Mary writes that her neighbor Len "is scared of outside, which is a disease called homophobia." (0:29)

Mary writes Max that kids often tease her, triggering Max’s own “buried” (and disturbing) memories of being teased. (0:32)

Mary writes that her neighbor Damian stutters. (0:40, 1:02)

Max’s ruminations about love lead to such overwhelming anxiety and stress that, as the New York Times headline proclaims, "Obese Retarded Man Craned Out" and an ambulance takes him to a “mental ward” for eight months of treatment of "severe depression and obesity" with Phenergan, Valium, Zoloft and even shock therapy. [Aspies can get the same other mental illnesses normies get.] (0:43)

After Max’s air conditioner falls out of the wall and kills a street mime performing below, Max is tried for manslaughter, but acquitted as “mentally deficient.” (0:46);

Max takes Valium when Mary's letters induce anxiety. (0:57)

Mary’s father Noel dies in a tsunami while fishing. (1:00)

Mary attends university to study "disorders of the mind." We see her reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. (1:01)

Vera copes Noel’s death with increased consumption of alcohol. She dies when she accidentally drinks embalming fluid. (1:04)

Mary, now more sophisticated in her terminology, writes about her neighbor “Len still struggling with his agoraphobia." (1:06)

Mary reads Pretending to Be Normal, writes her thesis on Asperger’s using her knowledge of Max, then publishes a book, "Dissecting the Aspergers Mind." (1:07)

Max, upset on learning of Mary’s book, takes more Valium. (1:08)

Mary, now drinking heavily and almost alwyas intoxicated after learning of Max’s reaction to her book, staggers to the mail box. (1:12)

Max, referring to his facial expression booklet, smiles for the first time in the film. (1:17)

Mary, despondent, finds Valium in a cabinet, stands on a table with a noose around her neck, a can of sweetened condensed milk (her favorite) in her right hand, and a handful of Valium in the left. The noose disappears. The walls turn black and objects swirl. The noose reappears, but Len, having conquered his agoraphobia, interrupts her by bringing a box sent by Max. (1:19)

According to Max Dr Bernard Hazelhof says we have to accept ourselves “warts and all.” (1:23)

Mary with her new baby enters Max’s apartment, but finds him dead. (1:26)

How will this film affect attitudes toward people with the disorders portrayed?

Agoraphobia | alcoholism | anxiety | Asperger's | Bereavement | diazepam | electroconvulsive therapy | Kleptomania | meetings | neologism | obesity | promethazine | psychiatric hospital | psychiatrist | sertraline | stuttering | suicide

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Mr. Fox explains to opossum Kylie his plan for getting past the beagles: "I take some blueberries and lace each one with 10 mg of high potency sleeping powder, enough to tranquilize a gorilla." (0:15)

Beagles eat blueberries and pass out. (0:18) Mr.Boggis does the same. (0:19)

Mr. Fox apologizes to Mrs. Fox for breaking his promise to her and reverting to his life of crime, "I shouldn't have fallen off the wagon." (0:52)

Mr. Fox: "Scared of wolves? I have a phobia about them." (1:05) Seeing a wolf in the distance he repeats, "I have a phobia of wolves." (1:06) Lupophobia?

hypnotic | relapse

Alice in Wonderland

Multiple references to Alice's loss of her father and his impact on her life and character. (beginning with 0:05)

Absolem the caterpillar smokes his hookah. (0:20, 1:10)

The Mad Hatter: "Have I gone mad?"
Alice: "All the best people are." (0:56)

Is the Hatter's behavior consistent with that of someone with occupational exposure to mercury and it's toxic effects?

Stayne says he wants someone to "kill me." (1:33)

Alice tells Imogen, "You need to talk to someone about these delusions." (1:37)

Bereavement | hookah | Substance-Induced Persisting Dementia | suicide

Shutter Island

Spoiler alert!

This is the story of a man (both Andrew and Teddy) who appears to have created a fantasy world in order to support his denial of an overwhelming trauma and of a psychiatrist attempting to help him accept the truth by staging an elaborate role-playing scenario at the hospital where he has resided for two years. Patients with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder commonly suffer amnesia for the traumatic event, but is it plausible that Teddy might lose memory of two years in a psychiatric hospital, including mistaking his psychiatrist for another US Marshal? Consider whether Chuck's dialogue with Teddy might constitute psychotherapy. Might Teddy's experience, like that of Truman in The Truman Show, provide a glimpse of what it might be like to suffer from Schizophrenia? Also, compare this film to The Machinist.

We learn that US Marshal Teddy's wife died in a fire and that Shutter Island holds a hospital for the criminally insane. (0:03)

We meet Dr. Cawley who seems to be the head psychiatrist. (0:09)

Dr. Cawley explains to Teddy that patient Rachel has escaped.(0:10) and that she harbors a delusion that the children she drowned still live. (0:12) Several people "play" Rachel during the film. Should we believe that Dr. Cawley created her "character" as an imitation of Teddy and/or his wife in the hope of leading him to reality?

The hospital day room. (0:14)

The first of many flashbacks to a Nazi prison camp during World War II. It is not always clear whether these are cinematic, imagined, dreamed, or hallucinated. (0:21, 0:23)

Psychiatrist Naehring: "You have outstanding defense mechanisms." (0:22)

Teddy's wife appears as in a nightmare confronting him about his drinking while holding a bottle. He tells her, "I killed a lot of people." She bleeds then turns to ashes after she tells him "You have to let me go." (0:27)

Dr. Cawley talks about "transorbital lobotomy" and the promise of newly approved Thorazine (chlorpromazine), a newly developed drug which shows promise of making the lobotomy obsolete. (0:31) The FDA actually approved Thorazine  in 1954, the year in which the film is set.

Close-up of a needle and syringe and a group of nurses. (0:34)

Patient Kerns: "I hear enough voices myself." (0:36)

Teddy tells us about Andrew, the maintenance man and "firebug" whom he blames for his wife's death. He said Andrew claimed "voices told him to do it." (0:39)

Another flashback to the concentration camp, now identified as Dachau, where Teddy explains that the "Commandant tried to kill himself." He then talks about George who has led him to believe that people have been "experimented on" at Shutter Island. (0:42)

At a large meeting medical staff plan for an anticipated flood. (0:49)

Teddy interviews Rachel who talks about her children as though they still live. She tells Teddy, "You're dead." She assaults him in an agitated state and is dragged away by technicians. (0:51)

Dr. Cawley gives Teddy unidentified pills for a presumed migraine headache. (0:56)

Teddy's apparent dream includes another flashback to Dachau and a vision of Andrew offering a drink. (0:57)

A young girl asks Teddy, "Why didn't you save me?" Teddy seems to awaken but is once again confronted with a vision of his wife commanding him to kill Andrew. (1:01)

Teddy walks past cells full of naked inmates until he finds George who also tells him to "let her go." (1:11)

Climbing into a cave Teddy confronts another woman who claims to be Rachel. She says, "I was a doctor." Claiming to be a psychiatrist herself she talks about paranoia and defense mechanisms. She explains that she got in trouble when "I started asking about these large shipments of sodium Amytal and opium based hallucinogens." Teddy responds, "psychotropic drugs." Rachel: "You ever heard of a transorbital lobotomy? They zap the patient with electroshock then go through the eye with an ice pick. Pull out some nerve fibers... I asked about the surgeries too. I was an esteemed psychiatrist..." (1:24)

Psychiatrists probably paid little attention to hallucinogens of any kind in 1954, let alone any drug of that class that might have been "opium based." Electrshock (ECT) has been administered without general anesthesia, and in fact the patient loses consciousness, so the idea of "zapping" the lobotomy patient before the procedure is plausible, but probably was never done routinely. Lobotomy involved severing "nerve fibers" but not removing them.

Rachel continues: "Let me ask you. Any past traumas in your life?... it takes 36 to 48 hours for neuroleptic narcotics to reach workable levels in the bloodstream... brain surgery" (1:28) Could any narcotic be accurately described as neuroleptic?

Apparently fearing that psychiatrist Naehring will stop him from escaping, Teddy grabs a syringe from the psychiatrist's pocket and injects the psychiatrist. (1:39)

Dr. Cawley to Teddy: "How are the hallucinations... you're not on neuroleptics..." he goes on to tell Teddy that he has been at Shutter Island for two years and that his tremors may have resulted from withdrawal not from alcohol but from chlorpromazine which he has not taken for a while.

Dr. Cawley: (the tremors are getting pretty bad... how are the hallucinations." [Teddy again sees his wife.] "Your delusions are more severe than I thought." He explains that Teddy was committed there 24 months ago by a court order. "You're not on neuroleptics. You're not on anything." (1:47)

Dr. Cawley again: "They'll lobotomize you, Andrew." (1:52)

Dr. Cawley introduces Teddy to the man he thought was his partner Chuck as his primary psychiatrist, Lester Sheehan. He says they have staged the most "radical cutting-edge role-play ever attempted in psychiatry." (1:53)

Dr. Sheehan explains to Teddy that his wife "Dolores was insane, manic-depressive, suicidal," and that she drowned his children. (1:55)

In an apparent cinematic flashback, but possibly Teddy's own memory, we see him finding his children's bodies in a lake. (2:00)

Teddy awakens apparently accepting the truth about his wife and children. He tells how after she tried to kill herself she told him there was an insect inside her brain. He appears to blame himself for not handling her illness differently. Dr. Cawley explains that he regressed "like a tape." (2:04)

Teddy seems to revert to his fantasy world, addressing Dr. Sheehan as Chuck. (2:08)

A technician accompanied by Dr. Cawley approaches holding a steel instrument shaped like an ice pick and wrapped in sterile towels. (2:09)

amnesia | amobarbital | Bereavement | chlorpromazine | delusion | denial | flashback | hallucination | lobotomy | paranoia | Posttraumatic Stress Disorder | psychiatric hospital | psychiatrist | suicide

Off the Map

Spoiler alert!

Bo tells the story of the summer in her childhood, probably around age 12 "when my father was depressed." (0:03)

Bo describes her father's depression as "inescapable, the focal point" of the family. (0:05)

Bo's father Charley appears depressed, says little or nothing, demonstrating psychomotor retardation and poverty of speech. (0:07)

Charley behaving normally, prior to the onset of his depressive episode. (0:11)

Bo's mother Arlene reads an article about "chemical depression." (0:12)

Arlene tells Charley, "sometimes you need drugs," but she acknowledges that Charley would never talk to a psychiatrist and asks Charley's friend and comrade in arms (probably from the Vietnam war), George, to seek psychiatric consultation himself in order to get medication for Charley. (0:15)

In the night Arlene panics when she is unable to find Charley, afraid he has wandered off. (0:22)

George and Arlene talk about George's visit to a psychiatrist. She remarks on the idea of "paying someone to listen to your childhood." (0:33)

George tells Arlene he may marry his psychiatrist. (0:35)

Charley cries while talking to IRS agent William. (0:37) William says, "I've never not been depressed." (0:38) Charley says it is the "first time for me." William describes a childhood memory of coming "home from school and my mother'd hung herself." (0:39) Charley tells William "being dead would be easier" than being depressed. (0:40)

Arlene worries about Charley who has locked himself in the outhouse, begs him to come out. (0:46)

William remains delirious for about three days after a bee stings him. (0:48)

William tells Arlene the story of discovering his mother had hung herself but questions the accuracy of the memory. (0:55)

Charley appears depressed at dinnertime. (0:57)

William tells Arlene he has some drugs he will share with Charley. (1:02)

Arlene tries to convince Charley to take the pill resting on the table, but he just stares at it. Only after Bo threatens to hide the drug in his food does Charley swallow it. He then makes a face. (1:05)

Bo says, "My mother is afraid he will kill himself." (1:11)

Charley walks, then runs, out of the house and down the road to George's house. He tells George, "I'm going crazy. I feel like strangling somebody." His legs shake uncontrollably. Could this be akathisia? He tells George, "I'm so pathetic... Wrestle with me, George." George refuses, but Charley provokes him. With George on top of him Charley pleads, "Don't let me go." (1:14)

Charley finally smiles when Bo has a sailboat delivered to their home in the desert. (1:29)

Charley shows more initiative as he starts to improve. (1:31)

William tells Charley now he is not at all sure how his mother died because no one in the family would talk about it. William cries. (1:34)

Bo says her father's depressive episode persisted for more than "half a year."

William, now an artist, is found dead in the desert, still holding a pastel crayon. (1:41)

An ordinary Major Depressive Episode, which probably resolves without treatment, in an extraordinary summer for an extraordinary family. By contrast might William have suffered from Dysthymic Disorder?

akathisia | Bereavement | Delirium | depression | drug | Major Depressive Episode | poverty of speech | psychomotor retardation | suicide

Whatever Works

Boris: "My father committed suicide because the morning papers depressed him." (0:05)

Boris: "I'm dying. I'm dying." Jessica: "Your panic attacks are getting more frequent and more intense. You have to go back on your medicine." (0:07)

Boris attempts suicide by jumping through his window after an argument with his wife Jessica. (0:09)

Boris waits in the hospital emergency department with his new (young) wife Melody for medical attention for a panic attack. (0:40)

Her mother Marietta asks Melody, "Did he drug you? Are you on sodium pentothal?" (0:46)

Marietta and friend smoke an unspecified substance with a hookah. (0:57)

Marietta tells her husband John, "I was sublimating my own creative needs..." (1:13)

Boris attempts suicide by jumping through a window. (1:23)

hookah | suicide | sublimating | thiopental

The Big Street

Gloria manifests most of the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Could Little Pinks' attachment to her evolve from his dependent traits?

Gloria's Florida physician seems to confuse what he identifies as "paranoia" with her unrealistic appraisal of her situation, but would you consider her delusional? He goes on to prognosticate that "when the illusion is shattered" she will "wither up." (0:58)

Dependent Personality Disorder | Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Summer Hours

Spoiler alert!

If this family were to consult a family psychotherapist, it might most likely stem from Frédéric' teen daughter Sylvie getting in trouble for shoplifting and possession of an unspecified drug. However, this is portrayed as a relatively minor crisis for this family faced with dividing an estate that includes a beloved family home and a collection of valuable works of art by the likes of Corot, Majorelle, Redon, and Daum. Frédéric, the only sibling still living permanently in France, wants to keep the estate intact, but both Adrienne, who lives in New York City, and Jérémie, who lives in China, want to sell the estate and divide the money. Ultimately, many of the pieces end up in the Musée d'Orsay, and the siblings settle their differences with little or no conflict.

Birth order, both by appearance and role in the family, and confirmed by actual birth dates of the actors, from oldest to youngest: Frédéric (apparently closest to mother Hélène), Adrienne, Jérémie.

Mother Hélène has died after having charged Frédéric with responsibility for proper disposition of the estate. (0:31) He cries in the car on arriving (0:33) at the funeral home to join his siblings. (0:34)

Teenagers smoke marijuana joints at a party at the house. (1:35)

Bereavement | cannabis | family constellation | joint

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Spoiler alert!

Antoine grieves the loss of his beloved daughter Laura. She completes the series of women psychopath perfumer Jean-Baptiste kills without remorse solely to obtain their scent and thus provides the final ingredient to duplicate a legendary fragrance.

Jean-Baptiste escapes execution through the power of his fragrance, and realizes that because he can neither love nor be loved he no longer has a reason to live. He returns to the place of his birth, pours the perfume over his body, and allows the crowd, intoxicated by his smell, to devour him. (2:16)

Bereavement | psychopath | suicide