Eunice Yuen, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and in the Child Study Center, directed film productions for a novel Compassionate Home, Action Together (CHATogether) Family intervention.
CHATogether is a family-centered intervention consisting of multifaceted psychotherapeutic elements including psychodynamic psychotherapy, drama therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Since its implementation at Yale Branford Adolescent Intensive Outpatient Program, CHATogether team has created up to 14 skits for adolescents (13- to 18-year-olds) and their families.
In the recent film production, Yuen and her team have goals to expand CHATogether to transitional youth and school-aged children.
- Skit 1: “Boy’s depression: Understanding the emotions behind the scenes” depicts how caregivers often focus on school-aged boys’ impulsive behaviors but less so to understand their underlying emotional struggles.
- Skit 2: “Girl’s depression: Understanding the emotions behind the drama” describes school-aged girls’ unique challenges to “fit in” with their peers on social media and how these major stressors are often overlooked by their parents.
- Skit 3: “The Growing Pain of Young Adults” depicts Generation Z’s agony, loneliness, and challenges in making their career choices. Parents may not be able to fully understand and support this new generation’s developmental pain and the associated mental illnesses.
These short skits will provide therapeutic tools to deliver CHATogether family intervention with future goals to expand to the Child Study Center and Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital inpatient transitional youth unit. The films were produced through a collaborative effort with Bonnie Yam, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at Yale Child Study Center; Jessica Augur, MS, psychiatric counselor at Yale Adolescent IOP; and Yun Feng, MD, and Thomas Laux, MD at Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital.
The work is supported by the Yale New Haven Health System Innovation Award.