Birdy
Stars
Nicolas Cage
Matthew Modine
Director: Alan Parker
Angela's Ashes, Evita, Bugsy Malone
The Road to Wellville, The Commitments,
Mississippi Burning, Midnight Express,
Pink Floyd The Wall, Fame
Birdy
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Based on 1978 Novel
By William Wharton
Born Albert William du Aime
UCLA: B.A. Art;Psychology Ph.D.
Died 10/29/2008
Novel about World War II Veterans
Movies from other novels:
“Dad” and “A Midnight Clear”
Agenda
Have fun
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Watching movie
Learning
Joining conversation
After the movie..
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PTSD Clinical issues, day-to-day veterans’
issues, cinematic considerations
Matt Miller, LCSW;Veterans Administration
--Clinical considerations
 Tom Price, LCSW,Veteran, St. Patrick Center
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--Realities for returned veterans
History of PTSD
DSM
posttraumatic stress disorder
 ICD
post-traumatic stress disorder
 Elsewhere,
post traumatic stress disorder
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PTSD
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Term created in the mid-1970s,
Officially added as Anxiety Disorder
DSM-III (1980)
DSM-5 (2013) created new category:
Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders
PTSD-like descriptions
Ancient Egypt
 Greece
 Rome
 India
 Elizabethan England
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Herodotus
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In battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.
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Athenian warrior went permanently blind
although “wounded in no part of his body.”
 When he saw nearby comrade killed
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Oddysey
3-week trip home from the Trojan War
becomes a ten-year journey
 To avoid dangers of Scylla and Charybdis,
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do not resist the dangers (much as modern
trauma sufferers must overcome their
resistance to memories of the traumatic
stressors).
Oddysey
Sorceress Circe admonishes him,
 "Do the works of war concern you
still, and toil?
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He is tempted by Sirens
and the addictive lotus fruit
First Medical Terminology
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Swiss Military Physicians-1678
melancholy
incessant thinking of home
disturbed sleep or insomnia
weakness
loss of appetite
anxiety
cardiac palpitations
stupor
Fever
First Medical Terminology
“Nostalgia”
Nostalgia
1863
 Public outcry about numerous “insane
soldiers” wandering around
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First military hospital for the insane
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Most common diagnosis: Nostalgia.
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French Doctors: maladie du pays,
(Disease of the Country)
German doctors: heimweh (Homesick)
American Civil War
military physicians diagnosed
 paralysis
 tremors
 self-inflicted wounds
 nostalgia
American Civil War
Jacob Mendes Da Costa-1871 Study
 Identified “Soldier’s Heart”
 (DaCosta’s Syndrome)severe palpitations;
an ailment of the sympathetic nervous
system
 Soldiers on normal leave often collapsed
with emotional illness at home, even when
asymptomatic on duty
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1901 Schreckneurosen
Bruns and Stierlin studied the
symptoms of survivors of volcanic
eruptions and mining accidents
 they coined the term
"Schreckneurosen"- the terror
neuroses.
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Russian Army of 1905
First army to determine that mental
collapse was a direct consequence of
the stress of war and to regard it as
a legitimate medical condition
 German physician Honigman served
with Red Cross there, and coined the
term “war neurosis” [Kriegsneurose]
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World War I
High psychiatric casualties attributed
to the new large-caliber artillery.
 Believed the impact of the shells produced
a concussion
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Thus the term “shell
shock”
Freud:“war neurosis”caused by conflict
between a soldier’s “war ego” and his
“peace ego.”
World War II
1945, Grinker and Spiegel :
 “Combat… or Battle Stress”
 “Combat Exhaustion”
 “Acute combat reaction"
 “Battle Fatigue”
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1952 DSM-I
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“Gross Stress Reaction”
…exposed to severe physical demands or
extreme emotional stress, such as in
combat or in civilian catastrophe (fire,
earthquake, explosion, etc)
[may be] “previously…normal”
The particular stress involved will be
specified as (1)combat or (2) civilian
catastrophe
DSM-II -1968
307.3 Adjustment Reaction of Adult
Life
 [different coding for different life
stages]
 Example: Fear associated with
military combat and manifested by
trembling, running, and hiding.
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First Medical Terminology
“Nostalgia”
PTSD—Back to Today
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Term created in the mid-1970s,
Officially added as Anxiety Disorder
DSM-III (1980)
DSM-5 (2013) created new category:
Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders
Clinical Considerations
In what ways was Al prepared and
unprepared for the stress of combat
before he joined the Army?
 How should we diagnose Al, if at all?
 How should we diagnose Birdy?
 Does Birdy's behavior in the asylum
correspond with dissociation, or is it
more like a form of catatonia?
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Clinical Considerations
How does Birdy’s pre-military
behavior relate to his postdeployment behavior, if at all?
 Did the movie portray Birdy's preand post-deployment behaviors as
maladaptive coping, or someone "being
himself?"
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Clinical Considerations
How does the movie portray the
treatment options available to these
two veterans in the Vietnam era, and
how has that changed today?
 What's up with that ending?! What
does it mean, what does the writer
imply about the two men, and what's
going to happen to each of them?
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Cinematic Considerations
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Chris Clark, BA, Cinema St. Louis
You!
Your comments.
 Your questions for panel members
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Fill out evaluations
You
Us
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