Hollywood Psych: Difference between revisions

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** Writers, critics, and commentators like to use the word psychopath when they want to emphasize the monster hiding underneath and use the word sociopath when they want to emphasize the normal appearing facade.

* Any show to mention Asperger's Syndrome. In [[Real Life]], it's (to make it [[The Theme Park Version|simpler than it really is]]) the "milder form" of autism that tends to show up as sensory-related problems, social difficulties, and concentrated interests in a limited number of subjects. Many with it have above-average intelligence and the names [[Steven Spielberg]] and Albert Einstein turn up in any discussion about it at least once. However, the TV version of it always concentrates on the "difficulty with social norms" and "above average intelligence" aspect.

** The internet has its own Hollywood Psych version of Asperger's. On the internet, due to the "socially awkward" and "above average intelligence" parts, Asperger's Syndrome becomes something you self-diagnose if you are socially awkward (often, [[Jerkass|outright hostile or offensive]]) but want to claim that it's okay not to try to improve because you are "[[Insufferable Genius|smarter]]" than anyone else. [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All|Even if you're not.]] It's basically an excuse to behave badly at will and still demand sympathy, and it annoys the average Internet denizen to the point that the faked syndrome has been nicknamed "Ass Burgers".<br />In contrast, most people who actually have Asperger's strongly desire not to inadvertently hurt other people and will lay low about it and either attempt to imitate typical people, or, if such imitation is undesirable or impossible, work specifically on the skills that help them to be more diplomatic. (Some actually just ''don't mention it'' specifically ''because'' of how many people believe the Hollywood Psych version of Aspergers and lump them into stereotypes.)

*** [[L. Frank Baum]] probably said it best... "Thereafter he walked very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to harm it. The [[Tin Man|Tin Woodman]] knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything."You people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful."

*** Of course, Baum was trying to say that the Woodman ''did'' have a heart.

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*** This was remarkably common in North America before the Our Lady of Angels school fire.

** It can actually be counterproductive to tell people during a disaster that they shouldn't panic. For one thing, when people are told not to panic they sometimes slow down to the point that they don't escape in time. For another, some might not even think to panic until they're told not to. Telling people not to panic also wastes time that could be used to tell people ''how to get out''. Most victims of large fires die because they unthinkingly try to exit the building the same way they came in and end up being squeezed together so tightly that they can't breathe. Telling people what to do also gives them a purpose - they'll move faster.

* Insanity in ''general''. Some shows like ''[[King of the Hill]]'' show people being able to check into a mental hospital or pretend to be insane and be checked in. Or someone will try to use the [[Insanity Defense]] to get out of prison. (Or try to be acquitted of all crimes) Typically, people who are legally insane don't ''know'' it. Although emphasis on typically, as some people actually ''do'' know that something is wrong with them. Usually, if you ''try'' to be insane, people will be able to see through the act.

** This is why it can be very hard to write insane characters; especially since the Hollywood version of "Crazy" is "someone obsessed with blood, death, and inflicting pain on others" or "Schizophrenic". A lot of sociopathic serial killers actually ''don't'' fixate on blood or death.

** The psychotic disorders, schizophrenia being the most well known, are usually what people think of when they hear mental illness. Mood and anxiety disorders are probably a close second. There are also dissociative, personality, drug related, eating, sleeping, and [[wikipedia:Mental illness#Disorders|many other kinds]] of mental disorders.

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== Anime and Manga ==

* L and most of the other children from Whammy's House in ''[[Death Note]]'' display many [[Rain Man]]-ish tendencies. Also runs with Silva's ideas about autistics being morally deficient. While all of them are ostensibly on the side of good, they are also completely amoral and freely admit that they only solve crimes for the intellectual challenge and are willing to sacrifice people's lives in pursuit of their goals. This inhuman morality is mostly to make them better foils to the [[Knight Templar]] [[Villain Protagonist]], who claims to be killing people for the greater good.

** But neither L nor the other kids are ever referred to as autistic, and most of the kids are not morally deficient as they are pretty upset when L details his [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]] approach to crimefighting. Near and Mello are the only ones who are intrigued and Near explains his own moral philosophy later. So this trope is either inverted or averted. The only explicit psychology in the entire series seems to be L's profile of Kira, which is brief but spot-on.

== Comic Books ==

* The arc in ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' where Emma Frost seduced Scott Summers, is a clear case of bad psychiatry (probably an intentional one). Not only was she treating him when she made advances, when Jean brought up that her husband was being taken advantage of, to Xavier, who has [[Informed Ability|been an actual psychiatrist]] for years, he tells Jean she is overreacting, and doesn't even consider Emma just might be violating ethics. And as a double blow to actual psychiatry, Scott is now portrayed in a happy relationship with Emma.

* According to the "[[Informed Ability|Doctors]]" in ''[[Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth]]'', [[The Joker]] is not insane ([[Did Not Do the Research|a legal term, that one won't find a mental health professional saying in that context]]) but Supersane! Yes it's a condition similar to [[Tourettes Shitcock Syndrome|Tourette's]]! You know what else? It's a load of Bullshit! [[Grant Morrison]] might as well have a physicist claiming that Black Holes happen because people fart while sleeping and is similar to the String Theory. To be fair most interpret this as a way to show that the Doctors in Arkham are a bunch of quacks and that they are the reason no one ever gets better in Arkham; this hasn't stopped a sizable part of the fanbase to adopt it as [[Comically Missing the Point|an accurate interpretation of the Joker's Psyche]] though.

** To elaborate, this "Super-Sanity" is that Joker remakes himself every day because he finds the flow of modern life too stressful and overpowering. Now, firstly, there is no universally agreed definition of sanity, but generally speaking it is understood by psychologists to be ones ability to function normally in everyday life, and how "normal" you are. So the idea that being ''Super'' sane means that the world is crazy is a contradiction in terms. The second thing is that what the psychologists are describing is actually more like an extreme form of Dissociation, a psychotic break from reality caused by trauma and/or an inability to deal with life's stresses. So Morrison and his shrinks are wrong twice over (assuming, again, that Morrison didn't just intend the doctors to be talking out of their asses).

*** Subsequent writers have occasionally made use of the term "Super-Sanity", as well, though the meaning seems to have shifted somewhat. Usually it just means he's at least slightly [[No Fourth Wall|aware of the fact he's a comicbook character]].

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== Literature ==

* Christopher Boone of ''[[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time]]'' fame has either [[Asperger's Syndrome]] or high-functioning Kanner's autism (it's never totally clear), but either way, it's stereotype city. Christopher has no emotions, no personal insight, no empathy, virtually no social skills at all, and is obsessed with- you guessed it, maths and science, which he understands to crazy savant levels. Despite his intelligence, however, he doesn't seem to know what commas are for as he writes in big long 'and then' lists, stating things that are happening around him but never elaborating on them.

** [http://iautistic.com/autism-myths-the-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time.php This article] goes into it more fully.

* The ''[[Discworld]]'''s Altogether Andrews probably suffers from DID, or something like it. He has eight different personalities, and none of them answer to "Andrews". He seems to get along with his beggar compatriots okay, except for the personality answering to "Burke"; he's not described in detail, but it's not pretty. Aside from the fact that Burke is said to be "kept buried by the other personalities", there's no indication that the different personalities are aware of one another.

** One other character puts forward the theory that he was just a meek individual with psychic inclinations who was overwhelmed by other personalities squatting in his head.

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* There was a recent ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' episode where having synesthesia was depicted as being like the conclusion of ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey|2001]]''. They wish it were that cool. In reality is really lame stuff like 7 having an intrinsic redness to it. And while there are slightly less lame versions (musical pitches having intrinsic colors is a version that many world renowned musicians have put to good use) none of them are anywhere as cool as that.

** Then, of course, there's the first episode of the sixth season where psychiatry in House's universe apparently never left the 70's. Admittedly, the creators stated that some of the mistakes were intentional to make allusions to ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest|One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest]]''.

** Another recent episode had a girl with DID that came as a result of a car accident she was in when she was a year or two old, which killed her father; she blamed it on herself because she had been crying. [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|Forgetting for a moment the debate that exists around the validity of multiple personalities]], two things are wrong with this: one, she was ''a baby'' when it happened, an age when she wouldn't have been able to even remember the incident, and certainly would not have been able to put together that her crying caused the crash—basically, the entire cause of her illness wouldn't have caused it at all. Two, the accident would have been more likely to cause PTSD than DID.

* A psychiatrist treating Niki in an early episode of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' diagnoses her with Multiple Personality Disorder, outdated terminology and all. In real life, one of the main symptoms of DID is that ''the victim isn't aware of the other personalities''.

* ''[[Monk]]'' not only seems to have both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder simultaneously, he is a picture of retro-Freudian "neuroticism," seemingly to teeter into Generalized Anxiety Disorder (with agoraphobia, naturally), Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and sometimes even sociopathy. Underlying it all, of course, are deep, unrealized issues surrounding his dead wife. This is of course [[Played for Laughs]] when it isn't [[Disability Superpower|giving him supernatural insight into crimesolving]].

** OCD is almost always played for laughs in entertainment.

** ''All'' OCD will have behaviors in common with GAD; they're both forms of anxiety disorder (OCD's compulsions can be seen as a maladaptive coping mechanism for the underlying anxiety). And most people with anxiety disorders do actually find the crap their illness puts them through funny, at least in hindsight.

* Almost everything psychological in ''[[M*A*S*H|Mash]]'' ever, especially the later seasons, especially the finale.

* Almost everything psychological in ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]'' ever, especially the later seasons, especially the finale.

** This could be considered more accurate than a currently correct treatment. ''MASH'' was ''supposed'' to be set in the early 1950's, remember. PTSD and Survivor's Guilt were still "shell shock", and the usual treatment was to send the guy home and expect that he'd get over it, and Freudian psychology was still pretty much the king of the hill.

*** Actually, the dominant psychological school at the time was Behaviorism. It wasn't until the Cognitive Revolution in the Sixties that it even became acceptable to even discuss Freudian ideas, and even then, most Cognitivist psychologist view Freud as being ultimately flawed. [[All Psychology Is Freudian|But that is a completely different trope.]]

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** If it's a placebo-type homeopathic remedy, how would it be possible to dose someone with it without them having noticed already?

** The show really isn't meant to be realistic. It's got a car that [[It Runs on Nonsensoleum|runs on dandelions]], come on.

** "Social Phobias" also fits way better with the general tone of the show and its narration, and as such was probably completely intentional.

* Averted in ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]''. No doubt Season Two had flaws but one thing that it has been praised for is the treatment of Dean's [[Survivor Guilt]] and depression. He's trying too hard to stay like himself (be a good soldier, defend Dad from outsiders and protect Sam at all cost, no chick flick moments), trying for suicide more times than he should and just when you think he's been fixed, something happens to prove just how bad it's gotten.

** The reactions to it are pretty realistic to it too - throughout the series. While it's very sad that he has an abandonment complex, Sam (both times) and John couldn't very well stay just to please him. Sam really does try to help him out but he's got his own soul-crushing issues to deal with as well. By ''All Hell Breaks Loose'', there was a mass war going on and while Bobby was clearly worried about finding one more dead body when he got back, the best thing Dean could do was to save the angst for later and - for the moment - buck up and help out. And as for the demons, why do you think they always tell him how useless/damaged/worthless he is? Dean's deep, dark pit of self-loathing is just so frigging easy to get into that there's not much point in telling him anything else.

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* The Canadian series ''[[Regenesis]]'' averts this; one of the main characters has Asperger's Syndrome, and he manages to get along fine with others (though with a slight degree of difficulty). He's also exceptionally talented in the area of chemistry as it relates to scent, and there's talk of how he could make a fortune if he decided to go independent and start a perfume company.

* Apparently [[Mary McDonnell]] (a.k.a., [[Battlestar Galactica|President Roslin]] ) guest-starred on ''[[Grey's Anatomy|Greys Anatomy]]'' as a heart surgeon with Asperger's.

** Most of her three-episode appearance can be seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIV-Nq5DXRY here], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVUGlsljdaA here] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlHU1Da-fSI here]. (For as long as the links stay healthy). A basic summation of her character is that she is very smart and very aware of her surroundings (and the motivations of others), but she is also quite rigid with her routines and methods (often getting upset when her expectations or plans don't follow through), and really sensitive to touch, having a conservative type of movement and dressing up in A LOT of surgery scrubs/winter wear.

* [[The Woobie|Karla Bentham]] from the third season of ''[[Waterloo Road]]'' is a sympathetic version [[Ripped from the Headlines|(created to highlight the issues surrounding adolescent mental health]], which she does well), but still has a condition that less resembles Asperger's than ADHD with elements of OCD and generalised anxiety disorder.

** The big problem with Karla is that she's more of a plot device than a character in her own right. It would be easier to forgive her OOT pedanticness and almost total lack of social skills or independence if she was shown the same sort of respect that the other characters get, but she isn't. The plot is never told from her viewpoint- every time she has a meltdown, for example, the perspective cuts to her TA, and their attempts to calm her down. She has been in the show two years and viewers still have no idea what she thinks and feels about things. She also never gets a plot that is unrelated to her Aspergers. It's a shame because she was written in the best of intentions, but woefully executed.

** OCD plus ADHD actually is reasonable facsimile of Asperger's. Enough that a lot of Aspies get diagnosed with one or the other.

* As a subversion, the actor who plays Dr. Spencer Reid on ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' works under the assumption that Reid has Asperger's (possibly complicated by inherited schizophrenia). Reid is not socially ''graceful'', and often tends to go on about the unpleasant statistics about the current kind of case just a touch longer than civilians may find comfortable, but he's a fully-developed character.

** There's some [[Alternate Character Interpretation]] at play with this one. Reid's actor thinks he has Asperger's, yes, but the only verbal indication of it on the show itself is given to us by an unsub who also believes that Morgan is "a pumped-up side of beef", Elle can't make it in "the BAU boys' club", and Aaron "I am not a narcissist" Hotchner would stab Gideon in the back to advance his career. As such, a portion of the fanbase believes that Reid isn't autistic, just badly socialized. Since Reid does show autistic tendencies (such as the social awkwardness), it's more likely the incorrect part of the unsub's line was that Gideon fails to see the symptoms.

** Played straighter in one episode, where it was implied that the unsub's psychopathy (called by name, so no excuses) resulted from childhood abuse. "Multiple Personality Disorder" was also suggested earlier on.

*** Psychopathy in the show is a word that has been thrown around quite a lot in the last few seasons. They seem to be using it to describe any Unsub that is inherently incapable of empathy and compassion, regardless of the underlying reasons. This isn't ''totally'' inaccurate though since psychopathy is not currently recognised as an official psychological diagnosis (so they have a bit of leeway on how they use it) and lack of empathy and compassion are generally regarded as two of the key symptoms in any current definition of the term.

*** Also in the very first episode, the unsub brings up [[Split Personality]] and Gideon correctly calls it DID.

** In fact, [[Criminal Minds]] as a whole is really bad about this. The majority of the psychology on the show is either out of date, misapplied, grossly exaggerated, or just flat out wrong, which can result in a lot of exasperation for psychologists watching the show. The most [[egregious]] of these is the premise of criminal profiling itself, which has been shown more than once to be inaccurate to the point that lay people do just as well on it as professionals.

* Fans of ''[[Bones]]'' have commented that the behaviour of doctors Brennan and Addy looks a bit like Asperger's, though its never mentioned in the show. This is not to even mention her view of Psychology seems to be Hollywood Psych, as she claims it's far "softer" (i.e. a social science rather then a natural science) a science then Anthropology. Most neuropsychologists would debate this.

** Honestly, there's a good chance that even most anthropologists would debate this. Large swaths of anthropology is done using ethnographic observations, which make no claim to Brennan's beloved objectivity. Instead this method encourages the researcher to make their biases explicit because the work cannot be done in an unbiased manner (thus allowing the analysis to approximate objectivity even though the observations were very subjective and biased). In fact, depending on where they sit theoretically, some researchers might reject the notion of an objective "truth" entirely. While psychological research is largely done using controlled experiments in laboratories - very strange that Brennan doesn't prefer that.

*** Dr. Brennan is a ''physical'' anthropologist, primarily, and that has actually a lot more in common with biology than it does with ''cultural'' anthropology. As for objectivity in psychology, that was for a very long time mostly the realm of biological psychology, which she may or may not have gotten much exposure to. If the psychology departments she's had much contact with were dominated by the...looser schools, it's probably the view she would have developed of psychology.

*** But Brennan ''does'' have a degree in sociocultural anthropology, or at least an education in it - just look at all the things on culture she spouts in the show, and the episode with the circus had her revealing that she did some ethnographic work with a circus, which she wouldn't have done unless she was doing serious work on it in university. The above point, then, that she criticises psychology for being unscientific when one of her own areas is far ''less'' scientific, is accurate.

** Zack Addy having Asperger's was confirmed by [[Word of God]].

** [[Word of God]] says Dr. Brennan does not have Asperger's, but the actress, Emily Deschanel, says she thinks the character does have it, and she plays the character that way.

* Subverted in the ''[[Lie to Me (TV series)|Lie to Me]]'' episode "Beat The Devil," which has a chillingly realistic portrayal of a murderous psychopath.