The Characteristics Of Anxiety Disorder In The Silver Linings Playbook

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There is an invisible epidemic. It is ever growing and yet remains hidden. Anxiety is an increasing problem in modern society and yet remains, most of the time, swept under the rug. There has been attempts to show what it means to have different anxieties and mental disorders in the film industry. While they may be made for money and for the public to enjoy, it still allows people to gather information and problems people must face every day. The Silver Linings Playbook captures the problem of a specific anxiety disorder (Russell, 2012). It follows the life of Pat Solitano, who was released from a mental institution in the opening scene. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a form of an anxiety disorder (Russell, 2012). This paper will analyze …show more content…

Pat is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and displays two hyperactive mood swings: maniac and depressive (Martinez, 2004) (Russell, 2014). During his maniac mood swings, he demonstrates poor judgement, aggressive behavior, unwise financial choices and increased drive to achieve goals. During his depressive swings, Pat is sad and hopeless and demonstrates anxiety and trepidation and considers suicide and suffers from chronic pain. Tiffany on the other hand treats in order to compensate for feeling guilty sleep with everyone in her office and then treats anyone who comes close to her as a threat. This in itself is difficult to understand. She frantically tries to avoid her grief by having extreme relationships and social problems (Russell, …show more content…

Pat, when in a depressive mood swing, suffers anxiety of being forgotten, lonely and betrayed (Martinez, 2004). The stress of knowing he has this anxiety also can create more anxiety and stress (Martinez, 2004). The treatment in the movie he receives is therapy and medication, however cognitive therapy would mostly help him more in the long wrong (Comer, 2014). He needs to process the stress and anxiety and emotion in order to recover and progress forward and not be caught in the past (Comer, 2014). Pat must face his dysfunctional thoughts and work through them. Tiffany is stressed through her unprocessed feeling and is then anxious when it comes time to face her real thoughts and emotions. This stress causes her to have anxiety toward anything having to do with relationships because it relates back to her unresolved feelings with her late husband. She is avoiding this. In order to process these emotions, she will need to probably need to go through some exposure therapy (Bonanno, 2004). She will need to slowly be able to say her husbands name and slowly start looking at pictures and then ultimately visit his grave (Bonanno, 2004). This way she will be able to face her feelings, process them, and then move forward in

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