teaching psychiatry using the cinema

Hi all

There's an interesting piece in The Economist about using films to teach students about psychiatry - you can read it http://www.economist.com/world/international/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=8892568

As you can see, there are two schools of thought on the value of cinema as an educational tool. Certainly one shouldn't think that just watching A Beautiful Mind or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is enough to learn about schizophrenia or the old-style asylum system. There is no substitute for the clinical exposure that you will be experiencing during your rotations. And it must be admitted that films by their nature tend to focus on the dramatic, the bizarre, the unusual and the threatening, rather than the more mundane aspects of mental illness (or any other topic)

However, it is important to recognise that many - if not most - people's perceptions of mental illness and of psychiatric services is formed by the mass media, and cinema is one of the most powerful and influential parts of that media. So aside from the value or otherwise of films as a learning tool, it is important to have some ideas of what these public perceptions are.