What Celebrity Case Studies Can Teach about Clinical Formulation of Mental Health Conditions

Abstract

A key challenge in the ‘making of the psychologist’ is how to teach clinical case formulation, which goes beyond just listing the symptoms that make the ‘diagnosis’. One approach which has been both effective and popular among students entails employing case studies of individuals who are celebrities with known mental health conditions and then exploring not only their presenting problems and symptoms, but also a detailed analysis of biopsychosocial predisposing concerns, precipitating events, perpetuating circumstances, and protective factors. Nine cases deemed to be particularly suitable for such psychobiographical instruction are reviewed to illustrate the learning points about case formulation. The cases were chosen because they provide a breadth of presenting symptoms and the individuals under consideration are ones who for the most part have been self-disclosing about their conditions, which makes the clinical material accessible for study; a number have been leaders in the fight against mental illness stigma. The use of celebrity case accounts serves to develop talents in case formulation and appreciation for the complexity of people and the developmental influences in identity formation. Further pedagogic benefits are heightened awareness of mental health stigma issues and the personal and societal barriers individuals face in seeking needed help.

Keywords:

• Training
• formulation
• diagnosis
• celebrity
• biopsychosocial

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to student cohorts at the undergraduate and graduate levels over the years who have engaged in the exercises of exploring this psychobiography approach to learning and who have substantially enhanced the learning of their course instructors. In particular, thank you to the most recent cohort of graduate students, from whose research we drew upon for a number of the histories; thank you to Natasha Baptist-Mohseni, Jeremy Forsythe, Rebecca Hudes, Alan Kian, Adina Levi, Claire Minister, David Olson, Lindsay Samson, Nazanin Shekarak Ghashghaei and Sonya Varma. Finally, we would like to thank the celebrities whose stories have helped provide the opportunity for the making of the next generation of clinicians.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joel O. Goldberg

Joel O. Goldberg is an Associate Professor, former Chair of the Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Canada and Fellow, Canadian Psychological Association, who has enjoyed teaching the Foundations of Clinical Psychology graduate course for more than a decade. He is a clinical psychologist who does psychodiagnostics training, is an Abnormal Psychology undergraduate instructor and has research interests that include stigma of serious mental illness.

Gordon L. Flett

Gordon L. Flett is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at York University and former Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Education in the Faculty of Health at York University. Flett holds a Canada Research Chair in Personality & Health and he is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS). Flett has conducted extensive research on perfectionism and teaches a fourth-year undergraduate course on personality and behavioural disorders in which students conduct psychobiographies of well-known people.