You should be “tracking” the paper assignment. THat means by now you should have thought about what film you are going to use for your assignment. MY advice for a relatively painless experience is this: a. Identify the film, b. read what disorder they represent and if that is something you are interesting in (for example “As good as it gets” is OCD a “Beautiful Mind” is Schizophrenia, etc , )c. Watch the film noting what three scenes you want to use for your paper and as you watch it, keep thinking of positive and negative messages, characterization, etc and take brief notes; d. Once you have done all of that, you have what you need to start writing. You do that not by writing the whole paper at one sitting, but part by part spread out over a few days, so you do the introduction, then work on the scenes, etc. You will be finished in no-time and will be pleasantly surprised to realize how easy it was to get the paper done.
I am providing the students with two options for their paper. First option is Analysis of Psychopathology in Popular Film, and the second, is Analysis of Psychopathology in a piece of literary work. Both, Literature and Popular media and films are a rich source of material addressing psychopathology and mental illness. You will be asked to view a relevant film or read a work of Literature. Then, I would like students to write a paper that addresses a number of relevant themes including the following:
- A comprehensive description of psychopathology (symptoms) or particular Psychopathological dynamics (Oedipus complex, Existential Angst) depicted, including a formal DSM/ICD diagnosis of the protagonist or main character. This should include specific and relevant symptoms and biographical information that indicates how the person displays these dynamics or meets criteria for a particular mental disorder.
- Identify a minimum of 3 SCENES either in the film or story that best the above points.
- A reflection on the positive and negative messages that the film or story portray regarding the particular disorder or psychological dynamics.
- Discussion of how well or poorly the movie or Literary work characterizes the particular form(s) of psychopathology depicted.
You will choose the movie or literary work you want to write the paper on, please don’t flood my inbox with questions regarding what movie or book to choose. For film suggestions, please refer to the “Psychology and Films Links” section below in the syllabus, but you can use ANY film with psychopathological content, except animated films (ie “Frozen”) please. For literary works, there are plenty of choices, both classical and modern, and you may want to do a web search for specifics. A very short list of authors I do like are as follows: Sophocles, St Augustine, Avicenna, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe, some of the Russian novelists are great (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekov), Robert Louis Stevenson, American novelists such as Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway (my favorite), and others. You may use mystery novels from Agatha Christy or Arthur Conan Doyle, and similar ones. You may also choose a biography in lieu of a novel, but you need to check with me on that one.
The paper should be written using APA format ONLY, and it should be minimum 2,500 and no longer than 4,000 words long NOT counting title page and bibliography. The paper has to have a title page, followed by an Abstract in which summarizes the main idea of your paper. Then you should have an introduction followed by the main body of your paper where you cover numbers 1-4 above each section subtitled. Finally, it needs to have a Conclusion and a Bibliography (I expect 6 citations of which at least three are from peer-review Journals). Therefore, your paper outline should be as follows and I expect to see those sections clearly indicated in your paper:
- Title Page
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Description of Psychopathology
- Description of 3 scenes.
- Characterization
- Positive and Negative messages
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
If you have never written an APA-style paper, I suggest you consult your Librarian for guidance or information on APA style or check in the Web as there are many resources for you there.
