In clinical practice, on the other hand, we cannot afford to ignore the dynamic interplay of many streams of thought. In 1977, George Engel enunciated the “biopsychosocial model” of illness in an attempt to bridge the various schools of thought. Modern clinicians must be familiar with several frameworks for understanding patients, even though some of these frameworks are incomplete or even at odds with one another.

In this symposium, participants will view 60 scenes from popular films, and use them as springboards to approach the common diagnostic and therapeutic issues from several standpoints: intrapsychic, biological/medical, existential, familial, behavioral, cognitive and others. For example, in considering someone with depression, we will look at concepts of grief, job frustrations, family conflict, biologic malfunction and impending death. The scenes, many of which are listed below, have been collected over the course of 30 years, and capture the essence of a dilemma or conflict. Much as we need to consider broad categories of diagnoses, family structures and cognitive styles, we must simultaneously treat each patient uniquely - as a “universe of one” - in Erik Erikson's words.