Ghostbusters

Psychologist Peter administers electric shocks to a subject every time he fails to correctly identify a Zener card (0:02) to study the "effect of negative reinforcement on ESP ability." (0:04)

Peter asks librarian Alice, "Have you or a member of your family ever been diagnosed schizophrenic or mentally incompetent?" (0:07)

Peter claims he has "PhD's in parapsychology and psychology." (0:41)

Police accompany possessed accountant Louis who wears a camisole. (1:00)

Peter tells his partners, referring to possessed musician Dana, "I just whacked her up with about 300 cc's of Thorazine."

aversive stimulus | camisole | chlorpromazine | psychologist | reinforcement

Monster's Ball

Spoiler alert!

Leticia, wife of Lawrence Musgrove, a man condemned to die in the electric chair, beats their obese son Tyrell for overeating and failing to lose weight. (0:28)

Hank's son and fellow corrections officer Sonny kills himself with a revolver in front of his father and his grandfather Buck. (0:36)

Buck tells Hank about Hank's mother whom he says, "... killed herself... quit on me." (0:49)

Leticia realizes Tyrell has died of his injuries after having been hit by a car. (0:54)

Viewed from a multigenerational perspective how can we understand Sonny's suicide in terms of multigenerational transmission. What might we expect to discover about Buck's family of origin? His wife's?

Bereavement | multigenerational perspective | multigenerational transmission | obesity | Physical Abuse of Child | suicide

Happy Hour

Spoiler alert!

Tully's friend Levine tells Tully's girlfriend Natalie, referring to Tully, "He's definitely an alcoholic." (0:24)

A hemorrhagic rash on his back reveals Tully's problems with blood coagulation, probably related to alcoholic liver disease. (0:37) Apparent evidence of rectal bleeding appears and leads to a diagnosis of "advanced cirrhosis." (0:38)

Telly tells Levine, "I have quit." (0:51)

Tully attributes his tremor to alcohol withdrawal, "writing with DTs." (1:05)

Natalie awakens to find Tully dead in the bed beside her. (1:23)

Similar to Leaving Las Vegas the dying alcoholic does not look quite as sick as I would expect in reality. Is it likely that either of these characters could perform sexually within 24 hours of death from alcoholic liver disease?

alcoholic | alcoholism | Bereavement

Ace in the Hole

Reporter Chuck not only exhibits, but also brings out in others, many of the worst aspects of human nature. Would he meet criteria for a Personality Disorder diagnosis? If so, which one?

Dr. Hilton suggests that trapped Leo use Demerol if the pain gets bad. (0:44)

meperidine | Personality Disorder

Taste of Cherry

Mr. Badii, apparently Iranian, tells the young Kurdish soldier he has picked up in his car that he wants him to bury him if he finds him dead. He adds, "I'm not mad." (0:24)

The Afghan man tells Mr. Badii, "I felt down." (0:45)

Mr. Badii tells the Afghan man, "There comes a time when a man can't go on... suicide... I've decided to free myself from this life." The Afghan man tells him, "Suicide is wrong." (0:48)

Mr. Badii says, "I've decided to swallow all my sleeping pills tonight." The Afghan man counters, "The Koran says you shall not kill yourself." (0:53)

The Turkish man, Mr. Bagheri, has agreed to return as Mr. Badii requested, but he tells him he wants him to talk about his problems first. Mr. Bagheri tells Mr. Badii the story of his own determination in 1960 to kill himself. He says after numerous attempts to hang himself from a Mulberry tree he tasted some of the berries, realized the beauty surrounding him, and abandoned his plan. (1:01)

Mr. Bagheri tells him, "Your mind is ill... be optimistic." (1:08)

Mr. Bagheri tells him, "Don't. I'm your friend. I'm begging you." Mr. Badii seems to become anxious. He asks Mr. Bagheri to throw stones at him to make sure he is dead before he buries him. (1:12)

Mr. Badii leaves his apartment. We see him lying in a hole. His eyes close, and we hear the sound of rain. The next day we see his car, which he had left with Mr. Bagheri, driving back to the site. (1:32)

Does Badii kill himself? Why does he want to? Does the film tell us anything about cultural attitudes toward suicide among men from the four countries represented? Ironically, in a film made at a time when suicides most frequently reported in the media would seem to have been committed by Muslims, an apparently devout Muslim tells Badii the Koran says it is wrong.

suicide

Lord Love a Duck

Lots of jargon in this film, some of it concocted:

An unidentified female psychologist (?) administers the Rorschach test to student Alan. (0:04)

In an apparent role reversal Alan diagnoses the psychologist with "massive repression." (0:05)

Barbara Ann, the object of Alan's desire, tells him, "everybody has got to love me." (0:12)

Barbara Ann's mother Marie takes pills (hypnotics?) Before going to bed. (0:19)

Phil (preacher?) tells a group of teens, "Bob is taking a degree in marriage counseling." (0:42)

When Alan begins waving keys in front of her face Barbara Ann tells him, "You're hypnotizing me again, aren't you?" (0:56)

Barbara Ann's suitor Bob tells her, "Dad was a psychiatrist, you know." Bob's mother Stella says he was the "first head shrinker in Beverly Hills to validate parking tickets." (0:57)

Talking about her husband, Stella says his death was "all psychosomatic." (1:00)

Marie washes some pills down with what seems to be liquor, says she would be "better off dead." (1:12)

Alan shows Barbara Ann that Marie is dead. (1:16)

Alan dictates into a tape recorder, "Marie's tragic death did restore my faith in suicide." (1:18)

Bob places a sign that reads "Marriage Counselor" in front of his house. (1:23)

Dr. Lippman diagnoses Bob, indicating he has "all the symptoms of belladonna poisoning."

Stella tells the others about Bob as a child "when I first suspected a psycho-suicidal pattern..." (1:30)

Stella talks about Bob again: "... and it's terminal stages, psycho-suicidal personality..." (1:32)

hypnotic | hypnotism | psychological testing | suicide

A Serious Man

Teenage boys smoke marijuana joints. (0:27, 0:41)

Larry's neighbor Mrs. Samsky smokes a joint. (1:13)

cannabis | joint

Valentin

According to Valentín's grandmother everyone has mental problems. (0:05)

Valentín tells us how when he wonders about his mother he will often "imagine that if I count to 1000 she'll ring the doorbell." (0:06)

Valentín's uncle Silvito tells him in church, "If you kill yourself, you don't go to heaven." (0:23)

His friend Rufo tell Valentín his own mother died when he was 15 years old. (1:00)

Rufito learns in a phone call that Valentín's grandmother has died. Though he appeared to be sleeping Valentín tells him he heard. (1:11)

The emotional fallout of his parents' marital dysfunction and abandonment of him: What helps Valentin seem to compensate so well? Certainly his friendships, especially with Rufo, must help.

Bereavement | magical thinking | suicide

The Painted Veil

In a remote village in China Kitty grieves the loss of her husband, physician and researcher Walter, after he succumbs to cholera, the disease he has been studying. (1:54, 1:56)

Bereavement

Intoxicating

Spoiler alert!

A talented young surgeon ravages his career with drinking and drugs. What are his chances for recovery?

Numerous close shots of drinking distilled spirits, mixed drinks, and beer throughout the film. (0:00)

Surgeon Dorian enters the hospital pharmacy where he purloins an unidentified drug. (0:05, 0:25, 0:27, 0:42, 0:55)

Dorian pops an unidentified pill. (0:06, 0:23)

Dorian and his girlfriend Megan snort cocaine from a mirror. (0:10)

Megan tells Dorian about her friend Anna, "Anna's daughter was killed by a drunk driver six months ago." (0:15)

Dorian pops an unidentified pill while driving his car. (0:16, 0:19, 0:25)

Dorian visits his father William, a former professional boxer who can no longer recognize his son. (0:20)

Dorian gives an unidentified pharmaceutical to his friend and dealer, Teddy, then snorts cocaine with a rolled up bill while Teddy smokes a joint. (0:26)

Anna, Megan, and Dorian drink. Megan passes out. (0:33)

William cries with no discernible trigger and strikes out at Dorian. (0:38)

Dorian tells Anna his father suffers from "pugilistic dementia, boxer's disease." (0:40)

While performing surgery Dorian's hands begin to shake, then he passes out. (0:54)

Dorian, Anna and Teddy share a joint then snort coke from a mirror. (1:00)

Dorian and Anna smoked marijuana from a glass bong. (1:02)

Dorian staggers. (1:07)

Dorian finds Anna unconscious after an apparent overdose of pills. (1:08)

In the intensive care unit Anna tells Dorian, "I thought about killing myself after my little girl died. What you're doing is killing yourself every day... I lost my little girl." (1:11)

Dorian pops pills at home. (1:18)

Snorting cocaine from a mirror. Dorian staggers. (1:19)

Dorian tells Eileen, apparently the chief physician at the hospital, "I'm the addict." (1:25)

Dorian snorts cocaine from a mirror. (1:26)

William dies in the hospital after failed attempts at cardiopulmonary resuscitation including cardioversion. (1:31)

Dorian spreads his father's ashes. (1:41)

In a home video we see Dorian's parents offer him what appears to be a drink of distilled spirits as a three or four-year-old child. (1:42)

addiction | alcoholic | alcoholism | Bereavement | cannabis | cocaine | Dementia Due to Head Trauma | intoxication | joint | labile affect | overdose | suicide

Mid-August Lunch

Alfonso tells Gianni that Alfonso's Aunt Maria "forgets things sometimes." (0:17) In fact she does later seem to forget about her diet and eats the casserole, forbidden because it contains cheese. She shows no other sign of dementia.

amnesia | dementia

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Richard, seemingly distraught and confused over the impending separation from his wife, stands in the front yard while his sons watch through the window, sprays lighter fluid on his left hand, and sets it aflame with his lighter. (0:04)

self-mutilation

Sybil

#sybilmovie

Spoiler alert!

If I imagine that I am a patient seeking the ideal psychotherapist, I have found her in Dr. Wilbur, a psychiatrist. I wonder how much disappointment in real-life psychotherapists this film has generated over the years.

The FDA has approved no drug for treating Sybil's condition, Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously called mulitple personality disorder), so only psychotherapy promises a cure. Dr. Wilbur declares to her colleague or mentor early in the film that she will use psychoanalysis, but this film portrays no such method. The patient lies on the couch only for hypnosis, usually sitting, pacing or standing instead. Dr. Wilbur violates traditional psychotherapy -- not to mention psychoanalysis -- boundaries in almost every scene. She treats her patient in the kitchen and even takes her on a picnic where alters emerge from behind trees. Dr. Wilbur leaves a party and her own bed to travel to the patient's home in order to rescue her from suicide. She visits Sybil's father and the physician who performed Sybil's tonsillectomy in childhood. She even tells Sybil she loves her, and Sybil reciprocates as the two embrace.

Yet not one of these boundary violations harms the patient or even appears to interfere with effectiveness of the treatment.  In fact one cannot imagine such a successful outcome without these violations. What does that tell us? Is this simply a fantasy which could never occur in reality? Do currently practiced boundaries actually do more harm than good? Do these boundaries only exist to prevent more flawed psychotherapists than Dr. Wilbur from exploiting patients for their own satisfaction? After all, for many psychotherapists, certainly psychoanalysts, is this not a case to die for? Even in the film Dr. Wilbur's friend warns her of the risk that the patient might produce more interesting symptoms in order to increase the psychiatrists's interest in her and her treatment.

Watching the film we might easily pretend that we see the entirety of the treatment, but both Sybil and Dr. Wilbur remind us that it has continued for years. Perhaps we see only the most interesting sessions, those in which dramatic breakthroughs unfold. I found myself wondering whether psychotherapy works any better in the heat of the moment than it does in regularly scheduled sessions in the psychotherapist's office.

*****

The sound of a creaking playground swing precipitates a flashback, and, apparently in a dissociative state, Sybil finds herself standing in the water. The fact that we do not see how she got there suggests to the viewer loss of her own memory of getting there. This device recurs through much of the film. (0:03) [Few clues differentiate psychopathological flashbacks from cinematic flashbacks.]

After Sybil enters her apparently empty apartment we hear two distinct voices conversing. (0:09)

Sybil covers her ears with her hands, grimacing in pain, apparently experiencing another flashback related to memory of a piano teacher. She finds her apartment in a mess, and apparently has no recollection of how it got that way. (0:11)

Sybil, covering her left eye with her hand, talks like a little girl as Dr. Wilbur conducts a neurological examination. (0:13)

Sybil reacts with exaggerated revulsion to the smell of what she identifies as disinfectant as Dr. Wilbur continues the neurological examination. (0:16)

Dr. Wilbur recognizes a dissociative episode when Sybil cannot recall the past 30 minutes of time. (0:17)

Dr. Wilbur asks Sybil, "You always lost time like that?" (0:19)

Sybil tells Dr. Wilbur, "Please don't touch me. It hurts." and "I don't cry tears like people." Dr. Wilbur identifies Sybil's fear as "a kind of hysteria." (0:20)

Sybil tells Dr. Wilbur, "My mother died a while back." (0:22)

At lunch in a museum her father talks to Sybil about religion and implies his church does not approve of "the practitioners of the mind." She purses her lips, breaks her glass on the floor and walks away. When she wakes up later, apparently in her apartment, she takes an unidentified pill from a bottle. She begins to hear voices that disturb her so much that she grabs the ticking alarm clock next to her bed and stuffs it under the mattress, but the voices soon resume. (0:26)

After a call from a woman named Vicki who identifies herself as a friend of Sybil in the middle of the night, Dr. Wilbur goes to Sybil's apartment in Harlem. She finds only Sybil who seems to awaken from a trance. When Dr. Wilbur asks, "Where's your friend Vicki?" Sybil cowers while squatting on the back of a chair and says, "I hate Sybil." Sybil recalls her childhood in Wisconsin where her mother has tricked her to get her into an operating room in an ordinary looking house where doctors administer ether while she is restrained in a strait jacket in order to perform a tonsillectomy. (0:31)

Sybil identifies herself to Dr. Wilbur as nine-year-old alter Peggy. (0:40)

While walking her dog Dr. Wilbur discusses the case with an older woman, her "friend," with a German accent who asks, "do you think she's really a multiple personality?" (0:40)

When the older woman (Dr. Lazarus?) asks Dr. Wilbur how she plans to treat "them," she replies, "psychoanalysis." She warns Dr. Wilbur not to "fall in love with her illness or she could be obligated to seem just more complex than she is just to keep your approval." (0:41)

When she accepts a ride from her neighbor Richard in his horse and carriage Sibyl smiles broadly and begins speaking French. She assumes this alter at her next appointment with Dr. Wilbur and identifies herself as Vicki. Without obtaining permission, but also without attempting to conceal her action, Dr. Wilbur starts a tape recorder. (A portrait of Sigmund Freud hangs on the wall in Dr. Wilbur's office.) (0:47)

Dr. Wilbur makes a joke about how Sybil could "get yourself together."

Vicki tells Dr. Wilbur that unlike Sybil and Peggy she is not afraid of anything. She avoids answering by changing the subject when Dr. Wilbur asks her about Sybil's mother. (0:51)

Dr. Wilbur has invited Vicky into her kitchen. (0:53)

Dr. Wilbur begins to challenge the separateness of some of the alters, "all pieces of Sybil." (0:54)

As we see an indefinite number of girls (and maybe a boy?) of different ages in a dark room where a woman reads in a rocking chair she tells Dr. Wilbur, "Marcia's going to kill Sybil someday." (0:57)

"When I asked her why she's thought about suicide so excessively she pretended to lock her lips and throw the key away." Dr. Wilbur reviews a series of drawings Sybil has given her depicting her dreams, many of which involve entrapment or pursuit. (0:59)

Alter Vanessa, who shares his interest in music, accepts Richard's invitation to go out. (1:02)

Richard tells Sybil about the loss of his wife in a motor vehicle accident. (1:09)

Seeing people on the street (possibly because their gray hair reminds her of her mother) precipitates another flashback to her childhood and another switch to a different alter who flees along the street (Peggy?). (1:14)

Another session with Dr. Wilbur, this time with Sybil at the piano. Revelation of male alter Mike. (1:20)

Dr. Wilbur plays Easter Bonnet on the piano while Sybil sings and dances. Dr. Wilbur addresses her as Peggy. (1:23)

In a flashback Sibyl cannot see. She tells Dr. Wilbur there are dishtowels covering her eyes and around her wrists. Hands appear to represent a faceless person whom Sibyl fears. Another flashback to the kitchen and people and a button hook. Dr. Wilbur encourages her to draw. (1:25)

Dr. Wilbur explains the drawings that one alter cannot remember, "You do them as other parts of yourself." Sibyl denies it, repeating "It's not true." (1:32)

Sibyl begins to accept that the recording played back to her by Dr. Wilbur reveals "me playing Mozart." Then, when Dr. Wilbur accidentally starts the recording at a place other than what she intended, Sibyl recognizes the voice of an alter as "my mother." Sibyl runs from the room and when Dr. Wilbur finds her she is curled up in a corner sucking her thumb. (1:35)

Dr. Wilbur tells her friend Irma on the telephone that Sibyl has dissociated into a baby and "I can't get her hypnotized." (1:36)

Dr. Wilbur appears to read from her records of the treatment that alter Mary "seems to be a reincarnation of Sibyl's grandmother." (1:37)

As Sibyl walks past shop windows two alters converse. She reveals that she expects alter Marcia to send her to her [deceased] grandmother. (1:38)

Alter Vicki enters Dr. Wilbur's office. "Marcia is constantly thinking of suicide." "We've made you this... for our Dr. Wilbur." Alter Vicki and Dr. Wilbur discuss using hypnosis to uncover repressed memories. (1:39)

Dr. Wilbur starts to hypnotize alter Vicki, suggesting to her that she will find clues to the importance of the color purple but that any hurt associated with it is "in the past." After she recalls a pleasant visit with her grandmother, she recalls her mother tripping her intentionally to make her fall down the stairs then close a door in her face. This is followed by other cruel behavior, then, off camera, her mother repeatedly hits Sibyl then kicks her. (1:44)

Still under hypnosis Sibyl recalls her mother tying a dishtowel around her eyes and hoisting her off the ground by another dishtowel tied around her wrists. She then places her in a dark grain bin where Sibyl marks the inside with her purple crayon. (1:55)

Dream of being pursued as adult Sibyl by a beheaded cat while carrying a box of kittens. Richard finds her crying and clutching at the top of her bookshelves. Richard asks, "Is Dr. Wilbur a psychiatrist?" He calls Dr. Wilbur who acknowledges she must "break professional confidence." Although we do not hear all of what she tells him, we do hear her instruct him that he may address Sibyl as Marcia and tell her that she has permission to think about killing herself but not to do so before Dr. Wilbur arrives. Meanwhile alter Marcia climbs to the roof where Richard finds her, and Dr. Wilbur tries to hail a cab to take her to Sibyl's apartment. She tries to jump off the roof, but Richard stops her. (2:07)

Dr. Wilbur arrives, applies a tourniquet, and injects Sibyl's vein with an unspecified drug with prompt sedative hypnotic effect. (2:18) [Assuming the film is set in the late 1960's what drug might she have used? Diazepam? A barbiturate?)

Another session with Dr. Wilbur: "You're thinking about suicide again, aren't you?" Sibyl denies it, "I wasn't thinking about suicide... It's a lie -- the whole thing. I don't have multiple personalities..." When Dr. Wilbur labels it "denial," Sibyl responds, "This simply is not denial or resistance or any of those patient tricks... I know I owe you a fortune..." Sibyl agrees to allow Dr. Wilbur to hypnotize her again to prove that what she has said is true, but the scene changes. (2:24)

While Dr. Wilbur is traveling in Chicago she contacts Sibyl's father who describes Sibyl's mother in positive terms at first, but then he tells Dr. Wilbur that one year "it got so bad I drove her up to the state hospital" where they said she had "the paranoid schizophrenia." (2:28)

Dr. Wilbur visits Dr. Quinones in the same office -- He refers to it as "the surgery" -- where Sibyl underwent tonsillectomy. He admits she had a "nervous mother." She asks him to show her Sibyl's medical records, and he complies with no consideration for consent from the patient. He reads a list of injuries from a surprisingly thin chart. He seems to regret his failure to pursue the cause of injuries that a gynelcologic examination would reveal, such that, "I don't believe that she can ever become a mother." (2:33)

Dr. Wilbur wanders through the now empty house in which Sibyl grew up. She sees items Sibyl had described to her, including purple crayon marks on the inside of a grain bin. She brings back and shows to Sibyl in another session a piece of wood with purple markings. (2:37)

Back in Dr. Wilbur's office Sibyl admits that the events she described were real. Dr. Wilbur tells Sibyl about her own pleasure in being "allowed to express my affection for you... I love you..." Sybil embraces her and sheds tears, "I love you, too." (2:41)

Dr. Wilbur takes Sibyl for a picnic in the country. As she starts painting she re-experiences pain and fear, the green color of the kitchen, the smell of disinfectant, as her mother prepares to give her an enema, having bound her with a broom handle on the kitchen table and suspended her feet from the hanging light and injured her with a button hook and knife, playing Dvorak. "I'm Sibyl and I remember, and I hate her..." (2:50)

Sibyl recalls her mother's words. In the kitchen scene Sibyl's mother alludes to how men will put things inside her when she grows up, providing perhaps the only clue to her mother's own disturbance. "I won't put a flashlight inside of them and say, 'You better get used to it because that's what men will do when you get older. They'll put things inside of you. They will hurt you'." (2:55)

Dr. Wilbur hypnotizes Sybil, suggesting that all the alters, including two boys, meet Sibyl. (2:57)

alter | Bereavement | boundaries | dissociation | Dissociative Amnesia | Dissociative Identity Disorder | flashback | Sigmund Freud | hypnotism | Physical Abuse of Child | psychiatrist | psychoanalysis | psychoanalyst | psychotherapist | psychotherapy | repressed memory | sedative hypnotic | strait jacket | suicide | switching

Read the book by Flora Rheta Schreiber:

Donnie Darko

Spoiler alert!

At the family dinner table Donnie tells his sister Elizabeth, "Maybe you should be the one in therapy." She snaps back, "Do you want to tell Mom and Dad why you stopped taking your medication?" (0:05)

When Donnie opens the medicine cabinet we only see the last few letters on the label: "-pin," but the 25 mg dose suggests the low dose of doxepin rather than Klonopin. (0:07)

Donnie appears to be sleepwalking, responding to the voice of a human size bunny. (0:08)

A boy at school snorts an unidentified drug. (0:17)

Donnie's dad Eddie tells him, "Tell Dr. Thurman whatever you want." (0:22)

In a session with psychiatrist Thurman Donnie tells her about his imaginary friend Frank. (0:23)

Donnie awakens to see Frank the bunny, obeys his command to flood the school. (0:25)

In another session with her Dr. Thurman hypnotizes Donnie. (0:31)

Donnie sees Frank through a flexible clear film. (0:38)

Sessions with Dr. Thurman (0:48, 1:04)

Donnie sees a clear fluid glasslike shape protruding from Frank's chest, then Samantha's, then his own, before the shape beckons him forward. (0:51)

Donnie's parents in a session with Dr. Thurman (0:54)

Donnie takes his pill. In another session Dr. Thurman tells Donnie about "daylight hallucination... common occurrence among paranoid schizophrenics." (0:55)

Donnie sees Frank while sitting in the movie theater with his girlfriend Gretchen. He responds to Frank's command to "burn it to the ground." (1:07)

Donnie asks his mother Rose, "How's it feel to have a wacko for a son?" (1:20)

In a session Dr. Thurman hypnotizes Donnie. He sees a vision of Frank. Dr. Thurman embraces Donnie and claps her hands to end the trance. (1:22)

Dr. Thurman leaves a voicemail message at Donnie's house. (1:27)

Donnie sees the fluid glasslike shape perched routing from his own chest and those of others. (1:31)

Gretchen dies when Frank drives over her in his car. (1:35)

Dr. Thurman sits up suddenly from her bed. (1:43)

Does Donnie Darko use time travel to commit suicide and undo Gretchen's death?

Bereavement | command hallucination | doxepin | hallucination | hypnotism | psychiatrist | psychotherapist | psychotherapy | suicide

Open Range

Cattleman Spearman tells cattleman Charlie, "A whack on the head can make a man strange for the rest of his days."  (0:39)

A bottle of laudanum sits on a shelf in Dr. Barlow's medicine cabinet, but it's the bottle of chloroform in front that catches Spearman's eye. (1:08)

Spearman uses the purloined chloroform to put Sheriff Poole to sleep in his own jail. (1:18)

Dementia Due to Head Trauma | inhalant | laudanum

Addiction

Disc I

This disc summarizes all the principal points and might be adequate for a layperson in itself. I disagree with Dr. Brady's use of the term "hitting bottom." She points out that one does not have to "hit rock bottom" before starting treatment. However, a more useful definition of hitting bottom involves the notion that bottom, however low or high it might be, is the point at which an addict or alcoholic decides it's time for a change.

Discs II and III

These discs elaborate on Disk I. Keep your finger on the fast forward button of your remote.

Disc IV

My favorite, this disc covers material not addressed on the others. It might be of interest to professionals as well as laypeople.

The CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) method attributed to Dr. Meyers. (0:05)

Enabling. (0:13)

CBT for psychostimulant addiction. (0:22)

Opiate replacement therapy, including use of methadone and buprenorphine as a harm reduction strategy contrasted with abstinence. (0:47)

addiction | alcoholism | recovery | rehabilitation | Substance Abuse | Substance Dependence

World's Most Dangerous Drug

This documentary covers some of the most significant aspects of methamphetamine, featuring numerous clips of the drug itself, use, users, and dealers.

Introduction of corrections officer Brett King with the Multnomah County, Oregon (Portland) Sheriff's office and his video production, "Faces of Meth." (0:06)

"Meth mouth," oral pathology related to methamphetamine use. (0:15)

Effects of methamphetamine on the brain. (0:16)

Injection of the drug, history of its development in Japan and subsequent military use during World War II. Use by workers in Thailand. (0:21)

Demonstration of smoking the drug by Thai prostitutes. (0:26)

Neuroanatomy of central nervous system effects of methamphetamine, including nucleus accumbens and animation of impact on dopamine function at the synapse. (0:27)

Effects of methamphetamine on laboratory mice. (0:28)

Illustration of loss of ability to experience pleasure with chronic methamphetamine use. (0:29)

Illustration of hallucination of "meth bugs." (0:30)

Review of history of production of methamphetamine by bikers in the United States. (0:33)

Demonstration of method of production of methamphetamine used by illicit labs. (0:34)

Busting dealers. (0:40)

addiction | methamphetamine

My Best Friend

Mère Bruno asks her son, "Did you take your tranquilizers?" Cabdriver Bruno answers, "I don't like to. They make me feel all hot and cold." (0:27)

Père Bruno tells antique dealer François that despite knowing the material better than his teachers his son did poorly on exams in school, falling apart because of "nerves." (0:52)

Before he appears on a television quiz show Mère Bruno gives her son his tranquilizer over his protests. He remains very anxious, even short of breath. (1:13)

anxiety | corrective emotional experience | sedative

Letters to Juliet

Spoiler alert!

Charlie has lost his mother and father (Claire's son) in the same automobile accident. Sophie's mother left her when she was only 10. Claire has also lost her husband Jack, and Lorenzo has lost his wife Rose.

Bereavement