Every Monday, Therapist Ryan Engelstad, and Producer Mike Graham, take an example from Pop Culture (i.e. Books, Movies, TV Shows) that features a Mental Health problem, and determine if the portrayal is accurate and something we can use as an example for those with questions or even curiosity, or if the depiction of the issue is exaggerated and just for entertainment. 

Lars, played by actor, Ryan Gosling, has an obvious mental health issue in this movie, and Ryan (Engelstad, not Gosling) thinks it shows signs of Schizoid Personality Disorder. Personality disorders are complicated in that, the person with the disorder, is usually unaware. In "Lars and the Real Girl", Lars believes that a full-sized, plastic doll is a real person, and his girlfriend. Mike has a lot of questions as to the reality of Lars' delusion and how his family, and the community around him, reacts.

Ryan and Mike talk a lot about finding support, and how people would actually react to this in real life. Also, they give us a bit about their backgrounds and how they met, and Mike lets the world know, that he is a sufferer of Mental Illness himself; a person diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. Mike believes things are getting much easier as far as public opinion of Mental Health is concerned, but knows there is a lot of work to do, yet.

It's Mental Health Awareness Week, and the goal of Pop Psych 101, is to aid in the conversation and help normalize it's discussion. As usual, to end the Episode, Ryan rates the portrayal of the Mental Health issue at hand on a scale of 1 to 5, using "Real Girls" as his rating system, this time. Mike rates the movie, as a movie, on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.

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Music Credit: 

Killers Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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