Pop-culture examples of addressing anxiety with CBT strategies

May 7, 2020 2:42 PM

I'm giving a lecture on CBT for anxiety to psychiatry residents who are skeptical of CBT and I want some pop culture examples. I'm looking for TV/movie clips of (1) people gradually confronting things they're afraid of and overcoming their fears, and (2) people having conversations about something they're worried about where the conversation partner asks them gentle Socratic questions, and as a result, the worried person gains a new perspective. Ideally, I don't want examples involving a therapist- I just want to show the *mechanisms* of how CBT works.

As an example of the kind of thing I'm looking for, my current go-to clip for #1 is this episode of Cesar Milan's show showing a a kid getting over his fear of dogs.

posted by quiet coyote to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

This might not be the specific technique you're looking for, but Steven Universe did a good job that was basically "leaves on a stream" (YMMV whether that's a "CBT" technique or not, it seems to be the favorite of the CBT practitioners I know, though).
posted by brook horse at 2:56 PM on May 7, 2020

maybe the “beach games” episode of the office — pam walking through coals, finally standing up for herself, and being honest about her feelings for jim. one of the very best episodes.
posted by changeling at 3:32 PM on May 7, 2020

Is there an entry on TVTropes that might match up?
posted by sixswitch at 4:09 PM on May 7, 2020

In Jessica Jones, she used a technique to manage her panic that involved remembering the streets in her childhood neighborhood. So she'd start reciting street names at random times, and halfway through the show she explained what that was.
posted by gideonfrog at 4:32 PM on May 7, 2020

Do you know why they are skeptical? There's solid data behind CBT in both randomized and pragmatic (aka "real world") trials. If these psych residents are anything like the neuro residents I know, pop culture references are going to be dismissed as "That's just Hollywood," i.e. throwing clinical knowledge under the bus in service to the narrative. (Even reality TV is going to be pushing a narrative it's trying to tell.)

I use pop culture references in my lectures all the time; they are a good way to lighten a heavy subject and help new knowledge stick by connecting it to something the learner is already familiar with. But I wouldn't use TV CPR to convince someone who was skeptical of CPR, y'know?
posted by basalganglia at 4:43 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: To clarify. The residents are psychodynamic/psychoanalytic and think exposure (technique #1 listed in the question) is cruel, and cognitive restructuring (technique #2 listed in the question) is mechanical or invalidating, and don't think either work. So when I explain what these techniques are, I want to show that they are actually just approachable, real-life, non-cruel/invalidating things that work, that are formalized a bit for a therapy setting. I'm also going to show data and actual therapy examples but I'm looking for pop culture examples to supplement.
posted by quiet coyote at 9:32 AM on May 8, 2020

I feel like Guinan on Star Trek TNG is sort of the embodiment of CBT. She's a bartender and a supernaturally wise space being, and her whole role in most of the episodes she appears in is to gently help other people reframe their thinking, either by asking wise questions or by telling wise stories.

(The way she's written has also been criticized as fitting into a long pattern of giving black actors, and especially black women, roles where they are selfless wise helpers rather than protagonists. So, I dunno, keep that history in mind? I don't think there's any harm in using her as an example, but use your judgment.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:43 AM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

For exposure therapy: Faking It was a British reality TV show that had people pull an Eliza Doolittle. They were asked to learn an essentially new identity well enough to fool “expert” judges over the course of a month, under the tutelage of other experts, immersing themselves in this new world. Cute and maybe not impressive in itself, except *quite* often (per follow up pieces), people developed a love for aspects of the activities they’d learned. (Eg a house painter actually really got into fine art and kept it up. Someone taught to surf did the same - like a LOT of the participants attached to their new “identities”.) Obviously, not a study, more than just exposure was happening, and your psychiatrists may come up with their own explanations or deny there was an exposure effect at all. Anyway, link:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/faking-it/episode-guide/

For CBT, well, challenging beliefs about causality to promote a self-serving bias by reality testing is like completely a narrative thing? It’s telling yourself stories about what happens in the social world and why, and about what you can do... can we say it’s about becoming the hero? Luke Skywalker hearing Yoda say “Do or do not, there is no try” is what comes to mind.

Good luck, though. What a task.
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:02 PM on May 8, 2020