Using the movie Ordinary People to teach psychodynamic psychotherapy with adolescents

Most movies provide rich examples of bad psychotherapy A few movie psychoth erapies are so accurate and well none that they can be used, like process n otes, to teach psychiatric residents and of her students the major principl es and techniques of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Ordinary People is one su ch movie, in which the treatment of a severely depressed adolescent boy is portrayed. By using a summary of the "patient's" background and the transcr ipt of one vignette from the movie "psychotherapy," a method is discussed f or teaching many of the principles and techniques of psychodynamic psychoth erapy with adolescents, including 1) transference and resistance; 2) neutra lity 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 gratifyin g or frustrating patients; and 7) multiple determination of symptoms and th e working-through process.