Welcome to our course, Mental Illness in Films for Children and Adolescents. 

Films can be a powerful tool for exploring the human mind, especially when something goes wrong. Our goal in this course is to learn about several mental illnesses that are common among children and adolescents. If you're interested in adult psychopathology, please consider signing up for our Mental Illness in Films course in the autumn semester.

We've designed this online course to help you enjoy learning about interesting psychological disorders and hopefully be surprised by some of the information we present. You're encouraged to go through the materials at your own pace and study as much as you want.

This course is entirely online now and we've found that it works quite well! Here's how it works:

1. Step one is to review the materials we've provided.

2. Step two is to watch a film. All films are available on Netflix, HBO, or by easily searching for the title online. Each film has a discussion link open.

3. Step three is to post comments about the movie. To pass the course, you'll need to post at least two comments about each film. You need to post an original comment and a response to someone elses comment. We've divided you into smaller groups to make discussions more private and meaningful, so please always post comments to your seminar group. Please read the discussions carefully and engage with others in meaningful conversations.

There's no hard deadline for comments, but for technical reasons, we appreciate it if you can keep up with the schedule. Each film has a recommended period for study, and it would be helpful if your comments are posted during this time to facilitate discussion.

Please post comments that address the subject of the film, which is mental illness. We've provided some questions that might help, but you're free to choose a different topic if you wish. Please don't comment on whether you liked or disliked the movie; the point of the discussion is to engage in an in-depth analysis of the film's portrayal of mental illness. Also, please don't describe what happens in the movie; assume that everyone has already seen it, and focus on your fact-based opinions.

Once you've watched and contributed to every film, sign up for the exam date. There are three different exam dates provided, but we won't be holding an exam on any of them. Signing up for the exam confirms that you've met all the course requirements, and we'll review your contributions and evaluate your performance. Please give us at least 24 hours to evaluate your performance.

If any topic makes you uncomfortable, please don't force yourself to watch the entire film or study all the materials. It's okay to skip things that make you uncomfortable. Just let me know if you have any concerns.

If you have any questions, please contact my assistant, Aneta Bočková (498951@mail.muni.cz).

We've tried to chose films that portray either small children or adolescents, but unfortunately, there aren't many films featuring young children with mental disorders that would be convincing. Nonetheless, we hope this course will be interesting.

Now, this text has been writen by me and rewriten by Chat OpenAI, because... honestly, it´s so much fun to play with. As for your comments - please don´t use it. We are truly interested in your own opinions and your english doen´t need to be perfect. We are not native speakers either.

Only comments posted in your seminar group will be counted for the final exam.  

Are you ready to get started? Let's go!

Anxiety disorders and trauma

Today we are going to study anxiety disorders as a trauma. Let´s start with something simple - to understand anxiety disorders, you need to understand fear and stress reactions. 

So how does our fear work? 

Please watch these five 5 minutes BBC videos about phobias: 

The important message here is that stress reaction is a normal physiological process and that the way we perceive things is very important in our life (for example most people would not fear feathers). Also fear doesn´t grow indefinitely, if we willingly stay with the trigger, it will eventually decrease. 

You can learn more about anxiety disorders in general and their treatment here:  

 Or if you prefer a shorter version, watch this video:

Now, diagnostic criteria for children vary from those we use for adults because disorders tend to show a little differently. 

I really recommend going through this web page which provides excellent information on anxiety disorders in children:

To understand what is going on in the film you need to learn more about Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), here is some basic information:

Or a shorter version: 

Check below for specific signs of PTSD in different age groups:

So now, you have enough ( maybe even too much, sorry about that) information about the topic and you may start watching our first film! 

Other resources about anxiety disorders.