CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY PRACTICAL INVESTIGATION - media and real life mental illness

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  • Created by: imogenrey
  • Created on: 28-11-17 20:16
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  • Clinical Practical Investigation
    • Are media portrayals of mental illness showing patients to be more aggressive than real life cases?
      • Used 2 case studies (Gerald and Heather) and 2 exerts from the film 'Girl, Interrupted'.
        • The clips were all around 10 minutes in length so we were able to compare the data in similar amounts.
      • This allowed to compare media portrayal or mental illness to real life cases.
      • Directional Hypothesis: The media portrayal of mental illness will include a significantly higher number of aggressive behaviours (aggressive content) than factual sources
    • The first case study looked into the Schizophrenia patient Gerald.
      • We found a clip showing a therapy session of his and transcribed it for use in our investigation.
      • Gerald often presented 'unusual' behaviours in the video; such as pulling with his hair continuously.
      • Gerald was diagnosed with Schizophrenia
    • Girl, Interrupted was the media we chose to compare to the case studies. This was due to the similar length and story line based on mental illness.
      • Our investigation focuses on the character Lisa who is shown prominently in the 2 clips.
        • Lisa is said to have been given a diagnosis possibly having schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder or sociopathy.
      • The film was released and produced after the case studies in 1999
      • Alike with the case studies the 2 scenes chosen were transcribed and viewed multiple times by the researcher
    • The second case study looked at the schizophrenia patient Heather
      • We  looked at real life clips documenting the individuals mental health issues.
      • Similar to Gerald, Heather also presented unusual behaviour like an obsession with tea.
    • Procedure
      • 1. after the clips had been transcribed and chose themes for our research based on previous research findings and what the clips had shown us.
      • 2. We tallied eaach time one of these behaviours was shown in both the case studies and movie clips to compare after.
      • 3. The tallied data was compiled to ensure similarity and the reliability of the findings.
    • Chosen Behaviours to tally
      • calm responses
        • manipulative behaviour
          • swearing
            • aggressive behaviour (physical)
              • Unpredictable
                • Distress
    • Conclusion
      • We found that typically the more 'negative' behaviour like swearing and being physically aggressive was show much more frequently in the movie than it was in real life
      • The real life behaviour tended to offer more calm responses which can be expected as the movie would have to make it more dramatic to entertain.
      • However, the real case studies did present more manipulative behaviour and distress than the movie; alongside providing more factual knowledge about the disorders from the therapists in the videos.
      • We can establish that media portrays mental illness more aggressively as Lisa was aggressive both physically and verbally much more often then both Gerald and Heather.

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