Alexandra Forest Borderline Personality Disorder

1.- Identifying specific characters that possess psychological disorder(s) and the symptoms of the disorder(s)

The character Alexandra Forest shows a Borderline Personality Disorder, which is a disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of instability of self-image, interpersonal relationships, and it affects dramatic mood changes, and the movie makes the impulsivity present. Alexandra has self-injurious behavior and suicidal behaviors. (448) Also I think she tends to have a profile of Antisocial Personality due to Borderline people do not harm other, but antisocial do. Antisocial personality is associate with irresponsibility, aimlessness, and lack of long term goals or plans, impulsive behavior, outright lawlessness, violence, marital

problems, lck of remorse. (446)
Symptoms of borderline:
• Instability in self-image
• She cannot tolerate being alone
• Makes desperate attempts to avoid feelings of abandonment
• Her fear of abandonment leads her to become clinging and demanding, but she pushes away Dan Gallagher on whom she depends.
• She has a stormy relationship
• She cannot regulate her emotions
• She have mood changes that run the gamut from the anger and irritability to depression and anxiety.
• She has a lack of the ability to thoughtfully plan her actions in advance and she acts impulsively without considering the consequences.

Symptoms of antisocial personality disorder

• Aggressive or hostile behavior

• Lack of responsible behavior

• She has a very Impulsive behavior

• Reckless behavior.

• Lack of remorse for misdeeds.

2.- Discussion of specific scenes where the symptoms of the psychological disorder(s) are displayed.

• efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment:

when she cuts her wrists when Dan goes to leave the house, when she shows up to his apartment pretending to be an interested buyer, when she calls to his office, apartment, everywhere.

• pattern of intense and unstable interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation:

She thinks is almost too good to be true, then when he tries to end the affair, she hates him, but also pleads for his return and seeks revenge at the same time.

• She has felt in love with him in 3 days:

Dan‟s feelings shift from anger to feelings of victimization as he asks Alex, “Why are you doing this to me...Why are you trying to hurt me?”

Alex‟s responses to these questions are, Doing what?...Why are you so hostile? I‟m not your enemy…I love

you.
• recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
• affective instability due to marked reactivity of mood:
when she mopes because he doesn't go to Madaam Butterfly with her
• inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger:
When she yells to Dan and kicks him in the back as he goes to leave her house to go home, when she yells at the operator when she is looking for Dan’s phone number while she is sitting on her bed with a bunch of junk food.
• transient stress related paranoid ideation or severe dissociation:
when she mindlessly turns the lamp on and off when she is at home because Dan didn't go to Maddam Butterfly
• Alex is doing everything to stay with dan, to the point, she follows Dan to the new house, boil Ellen Rabbit, traumatizing Ellen and Beth. Then, She kidnaps Ellen, making Beth have a car accident when they were looking for their daughter.
• at the ending where she attempts to kills Dan's wife is not characteristic of Borderline people, but rather Antisocial Personality Disorder
• At the end of the movie when Alex enters to Dan’s House to kill Beth, she suddenly appears saying:
-He tried to say good-bye to me last night. But he couldn’t because he and I feel the same way about each other. Do you know how it is when you meet somebody for the first time? And you get this instant attraction. And don’t you think I understand what you’re doing? You’re trying to move him into the country and you’re keeping him away from me. Any you’re playing happy family. Aren’t you? You wouldn’t understand that because you’re so selfish. He told me about you. He told me about you. He was very honest. If you weren’t so stupid, you’d know that. But you’re so stupid, selfish b**ch! You’re a stupid, selfish b**ch! .With a knife to kill Beth.

3.- Reactions of other characters have to the character(s) with the psychological disorder(s)
The more Dan tries to reason with her the more he realizes that she, “needs help especially when he know that Alex is pregnant with his baby and will not consider an abortion because she wants to have this baby. Dan sees this as a problem that they will have to, “live with for the rest of their lives.”
Dan thinks Alex is manipulative, attention seeking, and selfish and she is making others miserable. But I think Dan is not trying to accept that all this situation is his fault also. I think Dan is blaming Alex for everything, when he was the one who cheat at the first place. Dan tries to avoid and hide the situation to the point He stops accepting her telephone calls at the office and he has his home telephone number changed and unlisted, especially since Alex has frequently called the apartment and, when Beth answers, and Alex hangs up. Lastly, he is relocating with his family to a home outside the city as soon as possible. As desperately as Dan struggles to keep Alex out of his life, Alex has an equally desperate struggle to remain in his life. She figuratively breaks her way into his apartment by responding to Dan‟s wife as an interested buyer.
When Dan did not find other way to get away from his problem, He decides to tell his wife and he tells Beth about his short affair with Alex and Alex‟s pregnancy. Beth is terribly hurt and feels betrayed. She screams and strikes out at Dan and tells him that she wants him out of the house immediately. Ellen witnesses this and experiences frightening devastation.
4.- Your personal reaction to the way the psychological disorder(s) are displayed in the film based on the DSM criteria and/or what you have learned in class abot the disorder(s).
I think the film displays Alex with the criteria needed to be diagnostized with Bordeline disorder, but the only think it chances is the fact Aelex try to kill Beth.