5 Best Documentaries on Psychology You Need to Watch
Check out our picks for the top 5 documentaries about psychology to add to your watchlist.
Documentary films act as a medium that presents the audience with an exploration of real-life stories. They are designed to entertain, engage and educate viewers on any subject area.
Psychology documentaries for instance help us examine the nature of the human mind and behaviour across different situations. Using scientific research, case studies, and expert interviews, only helps us gain a deeper insight into our intentions, actions, thoughts and behaviours.
This post will introduce you to five such documentaries that will pique your interest in learning more about our minds. So whether you are a psychology student or someone just interested in this discipline, this is a list of documentaries on psychology you must check out.
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1. Project Nim (2011)
Duration: 1 hour 40 minutes
Summary: Is language just restricted to the human species or do primates have the ability to use it to communicate?
Project Nim captures one of psychology’s landmark studies and centres around Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee. Born in 1973, at the Institute of Primate Studies in Oklahoma, Nim was separated from his mother when he was barely 2 weeks old to be part of a study conceptualised by Dr Herbert Terrace, a psychology professor at Columbia University.
He was then placed under the care of Stephanie LaFarge and her large family. They raised Nim like a human infant and provided him with the skills of language that would allow him to communicate with others. However, since previous experiments on chimps had shown that they cannot create the sounds necessary for human language, the research team settled on teaching Nim sign language.
Through the documentary, we can observe Nim’s natural ability to acquire language and see him sign several objects throughout his day. While this might hint at a very rosy picture of Nim’s life, it's far from the truth. From this point on we witness the several twists and turns in his tragic life one in which he is constantly separated from the individuals he cares about and who care about him.
The documentary is extremely unique as it perfectly weaves together footage from the original experiment along with interviews from almost everyone who was a part of it. The footage allows us to witness Nim’s turbulent life while the interviews help us to get a better understanding of Nim.
This film is a recommended watch as it demonstrates pioneering research into the development of language across species, but at the same time, the life of Nim who is at the centre of all of this is heartbreaking.
2. The Me You Can't See (2021)
Duration: 5 hours ( 5 episodes each 1 hour long)
Summary: Is poor mental health affecting everyone or just a select few, and is there a way out?
Let’s face it. While there is greater emphasis that is paid towards physical well-being in society, people tend to avoid conversations about mental health due to the immense stigma and shame surrounding it.
"The Me You Can't See" arrives amid such a global atmosphere, necessitating the importance of dialogues about mental well-being. Hosts Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey have open conversations about their struggles with their mental illness and their experiences supporting someone with mental illness respectively.
The docuseries also includes dozens of stories from people from all walks of life from around the world. These individuals too openly discuss their journey to better mental health after experiencing traumatic life events or being diagnosed with a mental disease.
The series helps us understand that any individual can succumb to mental illness, regardless of whether they were a chef, an olympian, a pop star, a prince, an NBA player or a refugee. What matters, however, is the ability of all these individuals to acknowledge that they would like to change the status quo to grow and become a better version of themselves.
3. The Mind, Explained (2019-2021)
Duration: 2 hours 47 minutes (10 episodes each 20 minutes long)
Summary: What happens within our heads when we are creative, mindful, or brainwashed, or when we are anxious or dreaming?
Are you someone who finds yourself fascinated to learn more about the inner workings of your brain? “The Mind, Explained” might just be what you are looking for.
The 2 season docuseries comprises a total of 10 episodes, each focussing on an aspect of the human experience. We as the audience get to explore the science behind memory, dreams, focusing, brainwashing, psychedelics and personality.
Narrated by actors Emma Stone (season 1) and Julianne Moore (season 2), this show leaves no stone unturned to increase our fascination with our brains. Not just that they present scientific research regarding several neural pathways and regions of the brain using animations that make it easier for the viewers to comprehend. To top it all off, the inclusion of interviews with several neurologists and psychologists throughout the series increases our knowledge and compels us to ask thought-provoking questions regarding our brains.
4. Stutz (2022)
Duration: 1 hour 34 minutes
Summary: What does a therapeutic relationship look like?
What comes to your mind when I say therapy? Do you visualise a person, lying down on a sofa, narrating their life events, with a therapist sitting across/behind them making notes? This is one of the several stereotypes about therapy that have been perpetuated by society and the media. Amidst these narratives, a documentary like ‘Stutz’ feels like a breath of fresh air in showcasing what a therapeutic alliance looks like.
Owing to confidentiality, we rarely get to witness what occurs in therapy being discussed out loud, especially by a therapist, but actor/ director Jonah Hill is about to change that. Filmed over a period of 2-years, Hill takes us behind the curtains to witness snippets of his therapy sessions with his psychiatrist Dr Phil Stutz.
Through the documentary, the dyad discusses and uses parts of Stutz’s infamous technique called “The Tools” or as Hill would like to call them, “real-time visualisation exercises”. With the film, they hope to help audiences to reach better versions of themselves by demonstrating how Stutz’s work can be applied in situations.
Furthermore, the camaraderie shared between Stutz and Hill is extremely endearing and one contains expressions of vulnerability and trust. While it is atypical for a therapist to discuss their personal life in detail with their patients, given that this is a film about the therapist in question, this direction can be overlooked in this context. Overall, this documentary is a beautiful portrayal of a therapeutic alliance and is a recommended watch.
5. A Class Divided (1985)
Duration: 53 minutes
Summary: Can prejudice and discrimination be taught to us at a young age?
Prejudice and discrimination are unjustified actions that we commit against one another and are deeply ingrained in our social fabric. Researchers and social scientists have been working for decades to identify methods to understand how these beliefs originate along with steps that a community can take to alleviate of them.
An individual who contributed to this is Jane Elliot, a third-grade teacher from Riceville, Iowa. “ A Class Divided” follows an experiment conducted by Eliott on her class of third graders in the 1960s and the effect it had on them as adults.
To make her students understand what being discriminated against feels like, she classified her students into those with blue eyes and others with brown. One day she praised the blue-eyed children and pulled down the brown-eyed ones, providing the former with a few classroom privileges, while the next day, she reversed her behaviour.
Through her exercise, Elliott demonstrated how prejudice can be instilled into the minds at a very young age and how it brought out the worst in many students. In her own words, she was able to create a “microcosm of society in a third-grade classroom. Elliott has gone on to repeat this experiment with adults too with the documentary showing this study being conducted among prison staff. Do you think the adults behaved more rationally than the children?
You would have to watch the documentary for that.
The documentary is incredible in showcasing how there is a sudden shift in individual attitudes the minute a hierarchical group structure is introduced. It also shows that once people experience what it's like to be discriminated against, they're less inclined to want to hurt someone else again.
Well, that’s our list of psychology documentaries you should keep an eye out for. Do you have any recommendations for us to check out? Leave us a comment below.
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