Hollywood Psych: Difference between revisions

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* [[Insane Equals Violent]]

* [[L Is for Dyslexia]]

* [[Laser Guided Amnesia]]

* [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]]

* [[Ninety Percent of Your Brain]]

* [[Psycho Psychologist]]

* [[The Rainman]]

* [[The Schizophrenia Conspiracy]]

* [[Shell Shocked Veteran]]

* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]

* [[Single Issue Psychology]]

* [[Split Personality]]

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* [[Tourettes Shitcock Syndrome]]

* [[Word Association Test]]

* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes]]

* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?]]

See also [[Emotion Tropes]], [[Intelligence Tropes]], [[Madness Tropes]], and [[Parental Issues]].

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== General ==

* [[Split Personality|Dissociative Identity Disorder]] (known as "Multiple Personality Disorder" under the World Health Organisation's classification system) comes in two ways on television: [[Jekyll and Hyde]] or [[Super Powered Evil Side]]. It's also ''far'' more common in fiction than in reality. To the point where in reality, it's debatable whether or not it actually exists. The vast majority of first world countries refuse to recognise it as a disorder.

* [[Split Personality|Dissociative Identity Disorder]] (known as "Multiple Personality Disorder" under the World Health Organisation's classification system) comes in two ways on television: [[Jekyll and Hyde]] or [[Super-Powered Evil Side]]. It's also ''far'' more common in fiction than in reality. To the point where in reality, it's debatable whether or not it actually exists. The vast majority of first world countries refuse to recognise it as a disorder.

** For many years D.I.D. was referred to on TV as "schizophrenia." Anything even remotely resembling actual schizophrenia had another word for it - "crazy."

** Actually, the popular culture symptoms of 'split personality' tend to actually mesh better with bipolar disorder- the two 'personalities' being the same person in depressed and hypermanic states (and possibly a third when they're neither.)

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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.)

** 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 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_illness#Disorders many other kinds] of mental disorders.

** The word "psychotic" itself has become ''the'' diagnosis of [[Hollywood Psych]]. It's usually used as a blanket term for "crazy", where "crazy" itself mostly consists of "murderous and loving it". Psychosis is medically defined as "a loss of contact with reality", which can manifest as delusions, hallucinations, or "disordered thinking"; in fact, it's usually a symptom of another disorder (or even just heavy drinking) than the problem in and of itself. It is possible for psychotics to be dangerous as a result of their disconnect from reality, but being psychotic does not automatically mean being dangerous, and vice versa. In [[~~Laymans~~ Terms|Troper's terms]]: [[My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|Pinkie Pie]] and [[Homestar Runner]] are psychotics; [[Discworld (Literature)|Carcer Dun]] and [[The Silence of the Lambs|Hannibal Lecter]] are not.

** The word "psychotic" itself has become ''the'' diagnosis of [[Hollywood Psych]]. It's usually used as a blanket term for "crazy", where "crazy" itself mostly consists of "murderous and loving it". Psychosis is medically defined as "a loss of contact with reality", which can manifest as delusions, hallucinations, or "disordered thinking"; in fact, it's usually a symptom of another disorder (or even just heavy drinking) than the problem in and of itself. It is possible for psychotics to be dangerous as a result of their disconnect from reality, but being psychotic does not automatically mean being dangerous, and vice versa. In [[Layman's Terms|Troper's terms]]: [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|Pinkie Pie]] and [[Homestar Runner]] are psychotics; [[Discworld (Literature)|Carcer Dun]] and [[The Silence of the Lambs|Hannibal Lecter]] are not.

* [[Laser Guided Amnesia]], specifically the variant where you repress traumatic memories, causing angst, depression, or other mental problems. To "uncover" repressed memories was popular with psychiatrists in the 1980's and 90's, but is now pretty much seen as a scientifically and ethically dubious practice. Oh, it was also very popular in incest cases. Yeah, therapists actually [[Mind Rape|mind raped]] [[Moral Event Horizon|their patients into believing]] that they were molested by close relatives, and then put said innocent relatives in jail.

* [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]], specifically the variant where you repress traumatic memories, causing angst, depression, or other mental problems. To "uncover" repressed memories was popular with psychiatrists in the 1980's and 90's, but is now pretty much seen as a scientifically and ethically dubious practice. Oh, it was also very popular in incest cases. Yeah, therapists actually [[Mind Rape|mind raped]] [[Moral Event Horizon|their patients into believing]] that they were molested by close relatives, and then put said innocent relatives in jail.

* According to much print media and the internet, any previously healthy and contented young person can very quickly develop an eating disorder of potentially lethal severity if she (usually girls) see enough pictures of [[Hollywood Thin]] people of their own gender. This is improbable, to say the least- the [[Hollywood Pudgy]] trope may upset and confuse young people, but genuine life-threatening eating disorders are still very rare, are [[Older Than Celluloid]], and usually have no single cause, rather most specialists see them as an expression of complex psychological and emotional problems- most people are not susceptible to such extreme behavior patterns for any significant length of time.

** In a [[Real Life]] incident, the actress [[Keira Knightley]] sued [[British Newspapers|The Sun newspaper]] in 2007 over a story which clearly implied that a distraught mother held Knightly at least partly personally responsible for the death of her particularly young anorexic daughter. (Naturally, the Sun didn't shoulder any blame for inserting said pictures into their pages for very little reason several times a week throughout the last year or so...)

* Assertiveness Training in fiction usually plays out as an [[Extreme Doormat]] undergoes Assertiveness Training (usually in the form of hypnosis or reading a book) and he/she will suddenly become either a greedy, self centered, egomaniacal, [[Jerkass]] or a raging lunatic with a [[Hair Trigger Temper]] and end up alienating all their friends. Unlike in real life by the end of the story [[Status Quo Is God|everything will be back to normal]] with no repercussions for their behavior. Real Assertiveness Training is not at all like that and involves multiple sessions with a trained psychologist. It's about learning diplomatic ways to stand up for yourself and get your fair share, not how to bully others to get what you want.

* Assertiveness Training in fiction usually plays out as an [[Extreme Doormat]] undergoes Assertiveness Training (usually in the form of hypnosis or reading a book) and he/she will suddenly become either a greedy, self centered, egomaniacal, [[Jerkass]] or a raging lunatic with a [[Hair-Trigger Temper]] and end up alienating all their friends. Unlike in real life by the end of the story [[Status Quo Is God|everything will be back to normal]] with no repercussions for their behavior. Real Assertiveness Training is not at all like that and involves multiple sessions with a trained psychologist. It's about learning diplomatic ways to stand up for yourself and get your fair share, not how to bully others to get what you want.

== Anime and Manga ==

* L and most of the other children from Whammy's House in ''[[Death Note (Manga)|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.

** 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.

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== Film ==

* In ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|Batman Begins]]'', one of the earliest tip offs that [[Morally Ambiguous Doctorate|Dr. Jonathan Crane]] is not as good a psychiatrist as he claims is that he quotes woefully out-of-date ideas by Jung. (A [[Fan Wank]] is he was trying to cover for Falcone's mumblings of "...scarecrow..." to throw off Rachel's suspicions.)

* In ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|Batman Begins]]'', one of the earliest tip offs that [[Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate|Dr. Jonathan Crane]] is not as good a psychiatrist as he claims is that he quotes woefully out-of-date ideas by Jung. (A [[Fan Wank]] is he was trying to cover for Falcone's mumblings of "...scarecrow..." to throw off Rachel's suspicions.)

** Not to mention that there's no scarecrow archetype in Jungian psychology. But it's obvious that he's deliberately improvising some random plausible-to-a-layperson-sounding psychobabble to cover his own tracks. That can't even possibly be considered [[Fan Wank]]; the film makes it absolutely clear that, since he ''is'' the Scarecrow, he has to lie about what "Scarecrow" means. Duh.

** ''[[Batman Forever (Film)|Batman Forever]]'' doesn't do much better with [[Nicole Kidman]].

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== Live Action TV ==

* There was a recent ''[[House (TV)|House]]'' episode where having synesthesia was depicted as being like the conclusion of ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (Film)|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 ~~Cuckoos~~ Nest (Literature)|One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest]]''.

** 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 (Literature)|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)|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''.

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** 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 ''[[~~Mash~~ (TV)|Mash]]'' ever, especially the later seasons, especially the finale.

* Almost everything psychological in ''[[M*A*S*H (TV)|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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* ''[[Law and Order Trial By Jury (TV)|Law and Order Trial By Jury]]'' had the defendant try to use his Asperger's Syndrome as a defence in a rape case.

* 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 ''[[~~Greys~~ Anatomy (TV)|Greys Anatomy]]'' as a heart surgeon with Asperger's.

* Apparently [[Mary McDonnell]] (a.k.a., [[Battlestar Galactica|President Roslin]] ) guest-starred on ''[[Grey's Anatomy (TV)|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 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.