Apr 13
The Little Theatre Rochester, NY
TicketsKristyn Storey, MD
Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and Pediatrics, URMC
La Bamba— How Trauma-Driven Phobias Shape Our Lives
Program Description
Traumatic events, even if we don’t directly experience them, can have a long-lasting impact on our psychology that influences the ways we interact with the world, navigate relationships, and make decisions about the future. During this presentation we will explore how symptoms of trauma-driven phobias serve to limit our life experiences in the name of safety and control. We will also discuss the possibility to push past these limits and how Ritchie Valens was able to embrace both the opportunities and risks of flying in the context of aviophobia, allowing his music to reach across generations.
Film Synopsis
Biographical story of the rise from nowhere of early Native Latino American rock and roll singer Ritchie Valens, who died at age 17 in a plane crash with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper.
Los Angeles teenager Ritchie Valens (Lou Diamond Phillips) becomes an overnight rock 'n' roll success in 1958, thanks to a love ballad called Donna that he wrote for his girlfriend (Danielle von Zerneck), whose parents didn't want her to date a Latino boy. But as his star rises, Valens has conflicts with his jealous brother Bob (Esai Morales) and becomes haunted by a recurring nightmare of a plane crash, just as he begins his first national tour alongside Buddy Holly (Marshall Crenshaw).
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures
About the Speaker
Dr. Kristyn Storey is an Assistant Professor within the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center. She received her M.D. from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in 2014 and completed residency in General Psychiatry at Brown, where she was the lead author on an article in the Rhode Island Medical Journal, “Health Care Needs of Incarcerated Adolescents.” While in residency, Dr. Storey was active in developing strategies to improve the wellbeing of Psychiatry trainees, founding the Psychiatry Film Club, and continued these initiatives during her fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Brown as Chief Fellow. She served as an attending child psychiatrist in the Pediatric Partial Hospital Program at Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island from 2020 - 2025, working in a multidisciplinary team who treated children ages 7 years old and younger struggling with serious emotional and behavioral challenges. Dr. Storey joined UR Medicine Faculty in 2025 and works in the Brighter Days Pediatric Mental Health Urgent Care Center as well as the outpatient setting. She is also a lifelong fan of music from the 1950s and 1960s and the dawn of rock and roll.