Educational Media Reviews Online

Who needs therapy? Everyone most likely does at some point in their lives, and this video program is designed to help young adults realize it’s not as unnatural as they may think. Using a standard program format that has proven very successful for Human Relations Media programs, there is a young, attractive, down-to-earth host that shepherds the viewer through the main topics. Young adults who have experienced therapy together with the wisdom and authority of expert clinical psychologists round out the bill.

Broken into nine chapters (all accessible individually from the DVD menu), Who Needs Therapy? provides a pretty complete introduction to the process – everything from negative feelings and just feeling off-track to experiencing stressful and traumatic events to exploring the myths associated with therapy and the importance of choosing the right therapist. Stated in the introduction, the goal of the program is to “provide accurate information about therapy.” Once again, Peter Cochran, Anson Schloat and the folks at Human Relations Media have succeeded in achieving their goal and doing it in a record 19 minutes.

The young people in the film who relate their experiences with therapy are genuine and believable. The clinical psychologists are accessible, knowledgeable and down-to-earth. The content material is expertly crafted, and that combined with the personalities in the film, make for a very non-threatening way to introduce the topic of therapy to young adults. The accompanying educator’s guide rounds out the package for high school and junior college teachers and counselors, and will be a fine addition to libraries in those institutions. The video will also be useful for libraries in higher education for teacher education, social work and curriculum libraries. Highly recommended.