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Fall 2007
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Psychology
1910W: Movies & Madness: Media Portrayals of Abnormal Psychology |
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Welcome to Psy1910W! This course is designed to familiarize you with abnormal psychology from a descriptive standpoint, that is, understanding how mental disorders are currently classified, what their symptoms are, and how they differ from one another. To make this material more interesting, this class will approach the topic through film portrayals of characters with mental illnesses. The seminar will meet once weekly. Each topic will involve reading a module from the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (DSM-IV: the primary manual that is used by clinicians to diagnose psychological and psychiatric conditions), watching a film together as a group, contributing to in-class discussions regarding each film, and responding in a short paper to a question about the correspondence between the film portrayal and how the specific disorder in question is described in the DSM-IV. The DSM-IV describes disorders related to mood, anxiety, body perception, eating, substance abuse, psychosis, cognition, development, and personality. Media will be selected to cover as many of these domains as possible given film availability and time constraints. This is meant to be a fun course but not an easy one. The course is writing-intensive, and you will work hard to integrate material presented in the films with what you have read and with material presented and discussed in class. The "Syllabus" link to the right will lead you to a copy of the course syllabus as well as written assignments that have been distributed. The "Lecture Notes" link is password protected and contains pdf's of the PowerPoint presentations that have been used in class. You can access these files and print them out before each class period. NOTE: THE FINAL EXAM REVIEW SHEET CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE "SYLLABUS" LINK.
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