Abnormal Psychology

ADHD: Out of Control Kids
This remarkable film shows in a short space of time many examples of children from pre-school age to high school, and even adults, who suffer from ADHD. (more)

Before They Fall
This is a story of a family where paranoid schizophrenia took its heavy toll, but also gave it the courage to forgive. Young Matthew McBride stabbed his parents to death hours after release from a mental hospital. Matt¹s brother and sister were left to deal with not only the loss of their parents but the well being of Matt, who was not responsible for his actions (more)

Beyond the Borderline
This is a follow-up to Borderline Syndrome, showing how, six years later, the women have made strides in coping with their illness and living independently (more)

Blind Spot
Vanessa enjoyed a loving, secure family life until the age of twelve when her sixteen -year-old sister began having schizophrenic episodes. From that moment on, life in the family was fraught with concern and anxiety for the mysterious, unpredictable and frightening behavior of her adored sibling. (more)

Borderline Syndrome: A Personality Disorder of Our Time
Gives a clear presentation of a relatively new diagnosis. Experts Dr. James Masterson, John Gunderson and Marilyn Gewacke talk about diagnosis and treatment. (more)

Brainstorm
Depression is the hidden epidemic of our industrial society. Often it is unrecognized or denied. This film gives an overview of the disorder and includes an interview with William Styron. (more)

Breaking the Cycle
This film looks at families struggling with pre-schoolers who have serious behavioral problems. It demonstrates how early intervention may help. (more)

Captive Minds: Hypnosis and Beyond
How do cults hold on to their disciples? This film explains how long-term conditioning takes place. (more)

Deception: Munchausen’s Disorder
People afflicted with this disorder invent illnesses in order to be admitted to a hospital. Psychiatrists don’t yet understand it, but it diverts valuable health resources away from those who really need them. (more)

Depression: Beating the Blues
This is a clear, concise and well-presented overview of the physical psychological and social aspects of depression. (more)

Despair
This is the first full-length documentary about depression to consider the pervasive mood disorder from multi-ethnic viewpoints. It has been shown at many professional meetings. (more)

In Search of Sleep
The insomniac-filmmaker, hasn’t slept like a baby since he was one. He has spent thousands of nights thinking about sleep when he should be sleeping. He decides to get help, meeting with the world’s top sleep doctors and scientists. (more)

John’s Not Mad
This is a portrait of an adolescent who suffers from a severe case of Tourette Syndrome. Dr. Oliver Sacks comments on the case. (more)

Leslie
A portrait of a young black man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. For years in and out of mental institutions, he shares with us his startling past. (more)

Living the Roller-Coaster
Living the Roller-Coaster explores the experiences of two young women attending Stanford University who were diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (more)

Manic
A dramatized case study of manic depression. (more)

Me, My Brain and I
Neuroscientists such as Donald Stuss are now learning about the once-misunderstood frontal lobes of the brain from studying brain-injury patients in depth. (more)

No Place to Go
This film examines the plight of several homeless people suffering from mental illness, and the shortage of facilities in our society to treat them. (more)

One of Five: Families Coping with Mental Disorders
Here are inspiring portraits of five loving families, each caring for an emotionally handicapped, or alcohol-addicted member, with often rewarding results. (more)

Out of My Mind
An intimate portrait of twenty-three-year-old John Cadigan, the filmmaker’s brother who became seriously mentally ill while he as an art student at college.(more)

Phobias: Overcoming the Fear
In this film, eight courageous people struggle to conquer their paralyzing fears through psychotherapy, behavior modification, acupuncture and homeopathy. (more)

Secret Fears: Phobias
A compassionate look at a wide variety of people who suffer from phobias and anxiety disorders, and the different forms of therapy used to help them.(more)

Shattered Dreams
The emotional story of a family forced to deal with schizophrenia not once, but twice. Two brothers were afflicted with the disease. The third made this film. (more)

Sunny Intervals and Showers
Dr. Allan Levi is suspended from work and in trouble at home due to his episodes of manic depressive illness (Bipolar Disorder). Filmed in the year after Allan's diagnosis, Sunny Intervals is an intimate and ironic portrait of a marriage and a family in crisis. (more)

Through Madness
Three people who suffer from psychotic disorders describe it from the inside out. (more)

Unbreakable Minds
A poignant, humorous and unforgettable portrayal of three men struggling with schizophrenia. We learn how they and their families cope with the vagaries of the illness (more)

Animal Behavior

The Family of Chimps
This film documents the studies of Dr. Frans de Waal, the internationally known ethologist who based his spectacular book "Chimpanzee Politics" on his unique study at the Arnhem Zoo in Holland. (more)

I Talk to Animals: A Portrait of Samantha Khury
Samantha Khury has made a profession of being an animal therapist. She seems to communicate with race horses, goats, dogs and cats whose owners want to discover what is troubling their animals. (more)

Living with Chimpanzees: Portrait of a Family
Here is the story of an unusual nuclear family, Roberta and Phil and the two chimpanzees they have adopted. It shows the joys and challenges of life with our closest primate relatives. (more)

Autism

Autism: A Strange, Silent World
This sensitive film takes a comprehensive view of autism by focusing on three children of different ages, with different behavioral patterns. (more)

Behind the Curtain
This informative documentary explores the possible origins of autism and the therapies developed for treatment. A broad spectrum of professionals share their views. (more)

The Child That You Do Have
Shows a pioneering treatment which is based on the autistic child’s hypersensitivity to sound. The treatment combines auditory therapy and counseling. (more)

Make Me Normal
This portrait of autistic teenagers at a state school in England captures their frustration at not being 'normal'. (more)

Nowhere You Are
A portrait of a high functioning autistic young woman will sensitize viewers to the disorder. (more)

Reaching the Autistic Mind
Autism, a neurological disorder, affects as many as one in 150 children in the U.S., yet is the least funded of disabilities. By following six families with autistic children for two years, this film takes us inside the world of autism specifically at the Eden II School, in Staten Island, New York. There, the filmmakers gained unique access to children like Sarah, Aaron and Benjamin, triplets who all showed severely autistic symptoms at eighteen months. (more)

A School for Robin
Four year old Robin, who is autistic, has been mainstreamed into a normal school. This film follows his progress, as well as the satisfaction his teacher’s take in his achievement. (more)

Shattered Lives: Autism.
A "life skill center" where parents and professionals struggle to communicate wit and elicit response, from autistic people. (more)

Today's Man
Director Lizzie Gottlieb began filming her brother Nicky when he was 21 and had just been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome - a high functioning form of autism (more)

Body Image

Beautiful Piggies
This revealing portrait of an overeater will strike a chord worth Americans who are concerned with weight and body image. 28 min. (more)

Belly
A woman cures her eating disorder through a belly dancing class, which helps her accept and revel in the well-rounded female form.(more)

She’s Not Fat, She’s My Mom
This unique film provides insight into the sad world of compulsive overeating and the turmoil of addictive behavior. The filmmakers follows his mother over five months as she struggles to change her eating habits. (more)

Slender Existence
This multi-festival film documents the filmmaker's ten-year struggle with anorexia nervosa. Antidepressants and therapy helped her return to normalcy, and now she wants others to know about this disorder. (more)

Child Development / Education

Is It Really Me? How Teenage Girls View Their Bodies
This delightful film shows ten young women who aspire to to be dancers in musical theater as they take a master class with choreographer Ann Reinking and Gwen Verdon. They share with us their insecurities about their bodies. (more)

Boys Alone
Boys Alone is a riveting film of an English social experiment in which 10 eleven-year old boys are invited to be "home alone" without adult supervision for a week in a suburban house. The film tests the common belief that a pack of boys left together in a house for a long period of time, will self-destruct, as they did in Lord of the Flies (more)

A Deathly Silence
This powerful film examines the intellectual attraction of suicide to a vulnerable teen and the catastrophic impact on his family. (more)

First Person Shooter
Violent interactive video games make up a 20 billion dollar industry. These games may have an addictive quality, especially to teenage boys, whose lives often become dominated by them. What effect does brutality in virtual reality have on the minds and psyches of the young? (more)

Inside Stories: Self-Esteem (see below under Self-Esteem)

Lost Boys
This sensitive film portrays the emotional difficulties men have who have grown up without a father. (more)

Music and Early Childhood
This film makes a strong case for beginning music education at a very early age because of its precursor to language skills. We hear from Prof. Howard Gardner of Harvard University. (more)

Newborn
With Drs. Berry Brazelton, Lewis Lipsett and Louis Sanders, this film documents the extraordinary capabilities of the newborn baby. (more)

Out of the Mouths of Babes
Peter and Jill de Villiers of Harvard University, researchers in language acquisition, provide a clear and informative description of the child’s linguistic development. (more)

Prisoners of Childhood: Exploring the Inner Child
Inspired by Dr. Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child, five actors explore childhood memories to uncover feelings that had been repressed. (more)

Self Esteem Begins in the Family
Eminent psychologist Dr. Stephen Glenn shows that, to build self esteem, the most important thing is for parents to treat children with love and respect. (more)

Self Esteem and How We Learn
Focuses on the teacher’s role in developing self esteem in the child. (more)

A Sound Education
Dr. Chen Ho Yun teaches violin to ghetto kids in South Central, L.A.(more)

Take Omri, for Example
A portrait of a fifth grade child who is an "outsider", and doesn’t quite fit in. The other children are cruel to him. How should a teacher handle such a situation? (more)

Total Baby
This is a wry look at the way parents, scientists, and the baby industry try to give young ones a competitive edge. (more)

Toys
This film looks at the dramatic change in the kinds of toys available to children. Several noted psychologists, including Dr. Jerome Kagan, offer their views on the effect of toys on children’s behavior. (more)

Trouble With Reading
Why do so many children have such a hard time learning to read? What is at stake for them? Who can help them? This revealing documentary makes the important connection between early trouble with reading and serious behavioral problems in the classroom. (more)

When the Bough Breaks
Using hidden cameras, this film captures the interaction of three children with serious behavioral problems, and their parents. It shows how a whole family can be in turmoil if there is no intervention. (more)

You Must Have Been A Bilingual Baby
From the "Nature of Things" series, this film investigates how babies become bilingual, how school children fare in language immersion classes, and how adults cope with learning foreign languages. (more)

Deviancy

My Mother, My Abuser
The sexual abuse of children committed by women, most often mothers, is a rarely documented subject. In this film, six victims of maternal incest powerfully convey their nightmarish child hoods. (more)

o.com
This startling documentary reveals how the internet contributes to alienation, especially in the area of human sexuality. In North America alone, more than 8 million people pursue sex online at least 11 hours a week. The internet has actually removed touch and human contact from sex. (more)

Dyslexia

A Dyslexic Family Diary
The turmoil dyslexia can impose on a family is captured in this documentary of a mother’s eighteen -year struggle with the education system in an effort to get her son a good education. (more)

The Key to the World
Shows a new approach to dyslexia pioneered at Toronto’s Listening Centre. (more)

Page Fright
A sensitive portrait of people whose ability to read is impaired by a learning disability. With determination and help, the handicap can be overcome. (more)

History of Psychology

Anna Freud: Under Analysis
A well-researched, fascinating biography of Sigmund Freud's youngest and least wanted child who used her own unhappy childhood to develop the field of child psychoanalysis. (more)

Being Abraham Maslow
An autobiographical film portrait of the psychologist whose ideas are fundamental to the human potential movement.(more)

Johan Degenaar: A Fairytale Philosopher
This South African philosopher believes that myth and storytelling are a way of understanding ourselves and our universe. (more)

Milton H. Erickson, M.D.
The life and work of the man who pioneered in the field of medical hypnosis and therapy.(more)

Sigmund Freud: His Offices and Home, Vienna, 1938
Narrated by Eli Wallach, this film shows us the birthplace of psychoanalysis with its book-lined study and collection of antiquities. Photographed shortly before Freud fled the Nazis. (more)

Untangling the Mind: The Legacy of Dr. Heinz Lehmann
Documents the work of the pioneering psychiatrist whose work helped to humanize the care of mental patients. (more)

Marriage and Family

And Baby Makes Three
The film contrasts the childcare techniques of two couples, one white and one black, both with 10-month old babies. (more)

Couples Arguing
Arguments between couples are an important aspect of interpersonal relationships. The video shows couples arguing over money, sex, alcohol and children. (more)

Do Children Also Divorce?
Children have special needs during a divorce. This film sensitizes teachers and adults so that they can help the children avoid serious psychological problems later. (more)

Familiar Face of Love
This CBC program is an engaging study of how we chose our mates and for what reason. Dr. John Money discusses the "love map", or blueprint of the ideal relationship we carry within us. (more)

Hardwood: A Black Family's Story
Former Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis fathered two sons. One was with a white woman with whom he was in love but felt he couldn't marry in the racial climate of the sixties. The other was with a black woman with whom he had an unhappy marriage. Hubert Davis, the film director, was the mixed-race son who for many years did not know his father. This film movingly explores the pain of sons growing up with an absent father and its effect on their mothers. (more)

Just Mom & Me
A realistic portrait of the financial and emotional challenges faced by single mothers heading households. (more)

Life with Baby
The film shows three families adjusting to the emotional and physical demands of raising a baby. (more)

My First Time
A spirited group of people of varied ages and backgrounds recall the first time they made love. Some are funny, some sad – all are interesting! (more)

Paranormal Phenomena

Intuition
This fascinating program investigates the historical, cultural and modern scientific approach to confirming the existence of our pre-cognitive abilities. Scientific researchers are pushing the science of parapsychology forward and are proving that a correlation exists between physical science and parapsychology. (more)

Physiological Psychology

The Enigma of Sleep
This fascinating documentary brings us to laboratories in Italy, France, Israel and Switzerland where researchers are trying to untangle the mysterious working of the brain in order to help those who suffer from these disorders. (more)

Face Value
This documentary on facial kinetics begins with a brief history of the field and then reports on current research. (more)

Left Brain, Right Brain
Dr. Norman Geschwind of the Harvard Medical School introduces this fascinating film on hemispheric brain research. (more)

Memory: the Past Imperfect
This Nature of Things documentary explores many aspects of memory, such as long and short term memory, hypnosis and amnesia. (more)

Sleep and Its Secrets. Gives a clear explanation of what happens to us during the unconscious hours of sleep, and how our sleep patterns affect productiveness. (more)

Retardation

And Then Came John
This is an inspiring film about mother that refused to institutionalize her Down syndrome son. The family moved to a small town where John grew and blossomed. (more)

Another First Step
Twenty-six-year-old Michael Whalen was given the responsibility for his 46-year-old deaf, mute, retarded uncle, who had been institutionalized. Thus began a voyage of discovery. (more)

The Boy Who Draws Buildings
A portrait of idiot savant Stephen Wiltshire who has an uncanny ability to draw buildings from memory. Oliver Sacks wrote about him. (more)

David
This CBC portrait of a sixteen-year-old Down syndrome boy , whose achievements include his role in a television drama about his disability, has inspired professionals and parents who work with the mentally handicapped. (more)

Foolish Wise Ones
Fascinating portraits of three idiot savants: one who is gifted musically; one who is a mathematical genius; and one who is an artist. (more)

Home, Heart, Hope. This film shows the benefits to severely handicapped people of living in small, community residences, rather than institutions. (more)

May’s Miracle
May adopted a baby who was blind, retarded and had cerebral palsy. At sixteen he could not stand alone or speak. However, when she bought a piano, he sat down and played! That was her miracle. (more)

Lifestyles of the Poor and Unknown
A charming portrait of a mildly retarded married couple, Marni and Chris, who live a full life engaged with work, friends and family. (more)

Special Friends
This documentary shows a friendship between two young women with Down's Syndrome. They enjoy themselves immensely and each has attained a great deal of independence due to the relationship. (more)

To Be or Not To Be
At the beginning of To Be or Not To Be, two mothers wonder if there is a place in the world for their two sons. Isaac Larsen and Willie Smith have Down Syndrome. Eventually the two are admitted to a 'regular' elementary school program and the film then follows Isaac and Willie through their last year before sixth grade graduation. (more)

Violence and Sexual Abuse