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This data set shows the conflicts that films have regarding being expansive with race. All but one of the movies, that have a psychiatrist in practice, are about a white person in that position. This is a problem regarding representation, but it’s also directly correlated to the number of African American psychologists working in the field.
According to the American Psychological Association, in their “Racial/Ethnic Composition of Active Psychologists, 2013” only about 5.3 percent of psychologists were African American. This is compared to 4.3 percent of Asian, 5 percent Hispanic, and 83.6 percent of professionals in practice being white. The numbers are dramatically different. In American cinema, there is mostly an idea to continue the notion that these mental health professionals are mostly white because of the actual large number of white people in practice compared to any other race. However, regarding accuracy, these films within the recent show that people of many diverse racial backgrounds aren’t included in the actual field of psychology which highlights the reasoning behind why representation is so minimal.
Also, the gender differences between male and female portrayal are something that isn’t completely accurate to reality. The American Psychological Association shows in “Active, Retired, and Semi-Retired Psychologists by Gender, 2005-2013” section that there are more women in the psychology workforce than men and that number has fluctuated. However, since the 1990s in film, that number seems to be completely dominated by the male portrayal.