Therapy101 / Films & Docs
Films and documentaries
An annotated directory of 8 films, television series, documentaries and recorded sessions about therapy, for learners who want to see how therapy is portrayed or taught.
Each entry says what the work shows, then separately how closely that reflects practice. The entries describe works and do not recommend them. There are no ratings and no links to watch.
Screen formats and what they can show
Works on screen fall into four distinct formats. Each carries different questions about dramatic compression, editing and participant consent.
Feature films
Fictional stories that compress months of therapy into a two-hour narrative arc, often using boundary crossings or sudden revelations for dramatic effect.
Series
Multi-episode television dramas or docuseries that can follow weekly sessions, supervision and recurring relationship patterns over time, though still shaped by scripting or editing.
Documentaries
Non-fiction films exploring a practitioner, client or institution from the filmmaker’s perspective; they reflect one relationship or setting rather than general clinical evidence.
Recorded sessions
Filmed demonstrations or group sessions made for teaching or research with real participants, where questions of informed consent, editing and historical context are central.
Directory
8 works
- SeriesCouples TherapyAn American documentary television series (2019 onward) filming real couples across a twenty-week course of therapy with psychoanalyst Orna Guralnik.
- Feature filmsGood Will HuntingA 1997 American drama in which a young man with a gift for mathematics is drawn into therapy; useful for discussing how therapy is dramatised.
- SeriesIn TreatmentAn American television drama series (2008 to 2021) structured around weekly psychotherapy sessions and the therapist's own clinical consultation.
- Recorded sessionsJourney into SelfA 1968 filmed recording of a sixteen-hour intensive encounter group facilitated by Carl Rogers and Richard Farson.
- Feature filmsOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestA 1975 American drama set on a psychiatric hospital ward, widely discussed in the history of institutional psychiatry, group meetings and patient autonomy.
- Feature filmsOrdinary PeopleA 1980 American drama about a family after a son's death, in which a teenager begins sessions with a psychiatrist.
- DocumentariesStutzA 2022 documentary in which actor and director Jonah Hill talks with his own psychiatrist, Phil Stutz.
- Recorded sessionsThree Approaches to Psychotherapy (the Gloria films)A teaching film released in 1965, showing three therapists interviewing the same participant for a filmed demonstration.
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Browse by category
Categories follow the format of the work. A filmed session with a real client raises different questions from a fictional drama, so the entries treat them differently.
Documentaries
Educational draft · Subject review pending