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10 Ways to To Handle Life Changes With Courage
The Fruits of Desire
Nurturing a Healthy Marriage
10 Ways to Get Over a Hurtful Past
Ten Things Every Dad Should Tell His Son
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This is a very interesting list of videos Psych Central contributor Sandra Klume compiled. She writes, “Cognitive to clinical to social, the many applications of psychology reveal profound thoughts, human frailties and strengths. These are some of the best results, framed in video players.”
Click here to view the entire list. I’ve included the first five.
1. An Unquiet Mind: Personal Reflections on Manic-Depressive Illness. Kay Redfield Jamison doesn’t just suffer from bipolar disorder, she literally wrote the book. She co-authored the comprehensive textbook Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression while doing research as a Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. This talk was part of the tour for her awesome memoir An Unquiet Mind, and she is eloquently intimate about her own experiences. (00:30:29)
2. The Stanford Prison Experiment. (The link is no longer available because of copyright issues)Historic 1971 video (edited for an unknown vintage TV show) from the behavioral experiment by Philip Zimbardo, resulting in healthy people taking on unhealthy situational roles. Zimbardo recently discussed its relevance to contemporary war crimes in a speaking tour – watch The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. (00:05:24)
3. My Stroke of Insight: Jill Bolte Taylor at TED Talks. Rousing and inspiring lecture from a neuroanatomist about her internal observations and recovery from a stroke and the spiritual and psychological values she learned in the process. There’s also the Oprah webcast that followed her exposure from this sensational talk. Read her great memoir, offline. (00:18:44)
4. The Paradox of Choice features Barry Schwartz in a provocative TED Talk with a different view on social psychology – too much consumer choice makes us unhappy. Not just when you’re buying salad dressing; Schwartz looks at some wider sociological impacts of increased choice. (00:19:48)
5. Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons. Filmmaker Jenn Ackerman beautifully documents life on a psychiatric ward in a Kentucky prison. She interviews inmates, inmate helpers and staff about what it’s like to have a severe mental illness after most psych hospitals have closed and prisons take on a containment role. This film does reinforce some stereotypes, as wardens talk about being assaulted by patients and we hear tormented screams echoing through the cells. But we also hear that some of the men prefer to be locked in a prison cell 23-24 hours a day than free in a society that offers no help and “beats them down” until back in a cell. A short video but work continues as Ackerman plans to expand it into a feature film in 2009. (00:06:55)
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posted March 19, 2009 at 10:29 am
Therese,
Thank you for your blog. I’ve read posts to my mentally ill son many times and have been comforted and informed by it. I smiled at this post as I’ve quoted two of these books in articles I’ve written. The Paradox of Choice a few years back and An Unquiet Mind, in an article in the April issue of Christianity Today about my other son’s suicide, which was one year ago next week. Many blessings to you~
posted March 24, 2009 at 2:11 pm
God knows we need mental health care as much as the healthcare most people recognize; dental would be nice too.
posted March 24, 2009 at 5:29 pm
What a trip down memory lane! In 1970, I was hospitalized in the Psychiatric Ward of the University of Virginia Medical Center for a full-blown manic episode. In 1971, I was hired as Department Secretary for – wait for it – the Department of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing! At first, I thought it was because of my typing skill (121 w/p/m/). I did NOT tell my boss about my experience with mental illness, because I was ashamed.
But when I went to the Employment Office to take some papers, I saw a woman who had been on the Ward with me, as well as found my file from my therapist in the Department Library, so knew I had to “fess up.” I took my boss into her office, and told her the truth. She said, “I knew all along. I took my student nurses to the Ward while you were on it, and, though you were hospitalized, you were very bright.” What a RELIEF!!
Back then, they didn’t call what I had “bipolar disorder” – it was “schizophrenia,” until my third hospitalization,when they put me on Lithium. I took it religiously for 20 years, until the side effect gave me neuropathy in both legs. I’m now on Depatkote.
Seeing McLeod Hall as the backdrop really took me back. We had as our guest one time, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and she spoke to students and faculty as well.
THANK YOU, Therese, for this documentary, and THANK KAY for her honesty and compassion for those of us who suffer from bipolar disorder. The more information being desseminated, the better it will be for all of us.
posted March 24, 2009 at 5:34 pm
The above story was by ME; re-working it to get on the page, I forgot to put my name; sorry