PSY 0903: Forensic Psychology

A stark and graphic documentary of the conditions that existed at the state prison for the criminally insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Shows scenes of the daily life of the men, interspersed with shots from the inmates' talent show. Documents the various ways the inmates are treated by guards, social workers and psychiatrists.

Documents a behavioral program conducted by Dr. Richard M. Foxx to reduce or eliminate the bizarre, self-abusive behavior of Harry, who had been institutionalized for eighteen of his twenty-four years .

30 years after she was institutionalized at Kings Park State Hospital in New York, award winning filmmaker Lucy Winer returns to face her past and learn the story of the now abandoned facility. Her meetings with other former patients, their families and the hospital staff reveal the painful legacy of our state hospital system, and the crisis left by its demise.

Our lives are shaped, perhaps in equal measure, by both the qualities that nature instilled in us and by the events that we experience. However, just as our biology can sometimes go out of balance, leading our thoughts, mood or behavior to become disordered, so too can we become impaired by our experiences, so that our perception of the world becomes distressed. This is the case those who have trauma-related disorders, also known as trauma and stressor-related disorders. Individuals with these disorders are exposed to a stressful or traumatic event, leading to a variety of responses, ranging from anxiety to depression, from social withdrawal to reliving the event or events over and over again.What makes these disorders so unique is how intrinsically tied they are to their inciting incidents. This especially requires the clinician to not only be familiar with the effects of a patient's disorder but also its potential origins, and how those have altered the patient's sense of health and well-being.

We all may have times that we are unaware of our actions--where we go on "autopilot" so that our mind wanders to some other place while our body goes through the motions. Maybe we've been so caught up in a thought while driving that we've been going for miles without even realizing it. Or in an emotional moment, like after a break-up or losing a job, we may feel overwhelmed, so that minutes pass without us even knowing how we spent them. It could even be that at some random moment, we’ve experienced a surreal kind of detachment, where we feel disconnected from our thoughts, bodies or surroundings.

Given the complex interplay of processes within the brain, what we do know is that even the smallest insults to brain function can potentially impact our lives in fundamental ways. These intrusions, caused by injury, disease or other medical conditions, can alter the way we behave and our identity. This could progress to the extent that our family and friends may notice that we are not able to live our lives as we once did. We may no longer remember how to make a cup of coffee, how to get home from the store, or even the word for “chair.” Or we may realize that we are unable to manage complex projects in the way we once could. These changes in cognition are characteristic of neurocognitive disorders, a grouping of disorders codified and defined in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5.