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Borderline personality disorder research paper
Borderline personality disorder research paper
Borderline personality disorder case study
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Teresa Dolezal Abnormal Psychology Professor Amanda Ellis Film Paper 3/31/14 Film Paper: Fatal Attraction’s Borderline Personality Disorder In the 1987 movie titled Fatal Attraction, a happily married New York lawyer named Dan Callagher (Michael Douglas) has an affair with his colleague Alex (Glenn Close), and the two enjoy a steamy weekend while Dan's wife and daughter are away. But soon after the weekend ends, Dan receives multiple harassing phone calls from Alex and soon finds out that she is pregnant with his child. He tells Alex multiple times that he wants nothing to do with her or the baby but she does not stop. She soon escalates to the point where Alex is kidnapping Dan’s daughter and stalking not only him but also his family. Eventually it gets to the point where she breaks into Dan’s house and attempts to murder him and his wife, which then unsuccessfully leads to her murder. After witnessing Alex’s erotic behavior and self-harm tendencies, I have diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder (BPD). According to our textbook, BPD has been a major focus of interest for many reasons including; being very common in clinical settings, very hard to treat, and associated with suicidality. The DSM-5 diagnoses BPD in the presence of five of more of the following criteria: 1) frantic efforts to avoid abandonment 2) unstable interpersonal relationships in which others are either idealized or devalued 3) unstable sense of self 4) self-damaging impulsive behaviors in at least two areas (such as sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating) 5) recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or self injurious behavior 6) marked mood reactivity, 7) chronic feelings of emptiness 8) recurrent bouts of intense or poorly contr... ... middle of paper ... ...the DSM-5 criteria. The fact that Alex not only meets five but seven and a half of the criteria based on the textbook without a doubt lead me to believe that she has BPD. I really enjoyed watching this film and it really helped me to learn about BPD not only as a disorder but also from a perspective of someone who actually has the disorder, even if Alex was fictitious. The movie did a great job at portraying the disorder properly. The only thing I would have liked to have been added to the film would be seeing that instead of Dan “drowning” than Beth shooting Alex in the end, if they would have kept her alive and allowed her to seek treatment. I would have liked to see the treatment options given. But overall watching this movie helped to supplement what I learned in lecture about the disorder and have sympathy for those people who are unfortunate enough to have it.
Alex Forrest is a Caucasian female in her mid-thirties. Alex is an editor for a newspaper. She lives alone in a spacious apartment in New York City. She is single, however she is currently involved with a married man and reports that she is pregnant with his child. She appears to have average to high intelligence.
An estimated 1.6%-5.9% of the adult population in the United States has BPD, with nearly 75% of the people who are diagnosed being women. Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder include Frantic efforts to avoid being abandoned by friends and family, Unstable personal relationships that alternate between idealizations, Distorted and unstable self-image, Impulsive behaviors that can have dangerous outcomes, Suicidal and self-harming behavior, Periods of intense depressed mood, irritability or anxiety lasting a couple hours/days, Chronic feelings of boredom or emptiness, Inappropriate, intense or uncontrollable anger - often followed by shame and guilt, and Dissociative feelings. The three main factors that could cause this mental illness are Genetics, Environmental factors, and Brain function. This illness can only be diagnosed by a mental health professional after a series of interviews with the patient and family/friends of the patient. The patient must also have at least five of the nine symptoms of this illness in order to be diagnosed. The most common treatment for this illness is some form of psychotherapy. Some other treatment options are to prescribe medications and if needed a short-term
Many people never realize or take much notice on what deaf people go through in life, but by watching the movie "Love is Never Silent", hearing people are able to have a clear view of what it is like to be deaf in the hearing world. Many different perspectives towards how deaf people live, socialize, party or work are built by many distinctive types of people. As the movie "Love is Never Silent" shows, Margaret and her family are isolated from their community. They aren 't allowed to sign in front of the hearing because it 's strange and abnormal. Seeing a deaf person sign during a time where being different can make a person look like an outcast makes hearing people pity the deaf and end up treating them as ignorant people. Although deaf
There are high levels of comorbidity amongst bulimia (25%), substance use disorder (67%) and narcissistic personality disorder with Diana’s original diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (Ayearst, 2016). The patient exhibits binge-eating and crash diets consistent with the symptoms of bulimia. In addition, Diana was also found to abuse Valium by taking it in larger amounts (from 40mg to 80mg) and prolonged the use despite the issues caused by the substance (Comer, 2015). She also requires an unreasonable amount of attention from her family and therapist, believes she is “better” than any type of treatment or rehabilitation, is sensitive to criticism when she is rejected by men, as well as throws tantrums when people do not listen to her, which are all characteristic symptoms of a narcissistic personality disorder. The diagnostic features that overlap with BPD include impulsivity for bulimia and substance abuse disorder in addition to changing self-image in bulimia, as well as sensitivity to disapproval and rejection, high temper, and entitlement which illustrate the connection with narcissistic personality disorder (Gunderson, 2008). Additionally, although Agoraphobia is not a codable disorder, Diana expresses symptoms when she was afraid to travel without one of her parents as well as felt anxious when she was at work with her
For my final essay, I have chosen the movie “Fatal Attraction”, and I will focus on Alex Forrest and her mental disorder. Borderline Personality was displayed in the movie and Alex had almost every symptom of this disorder. Throughout this essay, I will be discussing Alex’s characteristics, intelligence, motivation, stress, social influences and/ or personality theories, treatment, and if the depiction of the disorder and treatment is consistent with what was discussed and read in the course.
I support the diagnostic conclusions associated with Disco Di because the symptomatology matched the research regarding MDD and BPD. Gunderson (2011) found that 6% of the population are diagnosed with BPD and of that 75% are females. He further states that most of these patients receive treatment after a suicide attempt. To be diagnosed with BPD the patient needs to display a minimum of five symptoms (Gunderson, 2011). Seven symptoms that Disco Di experienced are consistent with the clinical diagnosis of BPD which in Disco Di’s case includes: impulsive behaviour around substance use and sex, recurrent suicidal behaviours, feeling of abandonment, identity disturb...
Relationships are complicated, not every relationship will last, and this seems to be the most apparent with romantic relationships, as these types of relationships two partners will often come together and open up to each other and become very close. Every relationship needs effective communication, and this is evident in the film, The Breakup; starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. This film ties in with Interpersonal Communications very well as it portrays its message of poor communication very well. Models of Relational Dynamics, couples conflict styles, crazymakers, and conflict in relational systems are some of the topics that the film perfectly depicts.
The psychiatrist recommended that she be admitted to a mental hospital for women, where she can rest and recover. Another sign of the Borderline Personality Disorder is c...
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) has been a disability surrounded by stigma and confusion for a long time, and the time to bring awareness and public understanding to this disability is long overdue. The disability itself often gets misdiagnosed as an other disability since the symptoms overlap with many other disabilities (NIMH, n.d, para 16), or worse case scenario, a medical professional refuses to diagnose or treat the disability due to the belief that these people are untreatable because of a negative schema about the disability and clinical controversies on whether BPD is a legitimate diagnosis (Hoffman, 2007) . However, after nearly three decades of research, it has come to light that BPD does indeed exist, does have a good prognosis for remission with treatment (BPD Overview, n.d, para 3), and that there are many treatment options available such as three different types of psychotherapy (Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Schema-focused therapy), omega-3 fatty acid supplements, and/or medications (NIMH, n.d, para 29, 30, 31, and 39, 41). Even though the disability started as a psychoanalytic colloquialism for untreatable neurotics (Gunderson, 2009), BPD is very treatable and doesn’t deserve the stigma it currently carries throughout society.
BPD is a complex disorder in a sense that the symptoms such as depression, anxiety and substance abuse may cause a misdiagnosis thus overlooking BPD completely (Biskin & Paris, 2013). This personality disorder has also been known to occur simultaneously with anxiety disorders, eating disorders and bipolar mood disorders (Butcher, Mineka & Hooley, 2014). In addition, the prevalence of BPD decreases in older individuals (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
Self-destructive behaviors are also very common in individuals with Borderline personality disorder. Susanna validates this trait by her lack of motivation, conversations about suicide, and her suicide For example; Lisa, the diagnosed sociopath, displays very little empathy for those around her. This is made clear when she sees Daisy’s post suicide body and is not saddened whatsoever. Another accurate portrayal is the patient with anorexia nervosa Janet. Janet refuses to eat, is in denial about her condition, is emotionally labile, and is always exercising.
There has been no change in the diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV to the DSM-5 with regards to diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder is defined by the American Psychiatric Association in the DSM-5 (2013) as “a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts” (Borderline Personality Disorder). There are nine criteria listed in the DSM-5 (2013) that are utilized as indicators that the individual meets the diagnostic definition of BPD. The individual must meet a minimum of five of the criteria
This film challenged my previous thoughts of bipolar disorder and took me into personal accounts of people suffering from this horrible disorder. I learned that individuals that are diagnosed with bipolar disorder are not the same and have different experiences of how the disease affected their life. I was honestly shocked at the fact that a disease in the brain can make you go into a manic state of mind and then fall into a deep depression. One of the most eye opening parts in the film was when Cheri was going to a client’s house and had to look into the mirror before she went in and told herself to put on her game face and transform into a chipper, perky version of herself because she was feeling down. This made me realize that people around you can be suffering from depression or other mental diseases around you and you can be completely unaware because the symptoms can be
Some symptoms of BPD can include fear of abandonment (1), unstable relationships (2), self-harm (3), and destructive behavior (4). In one scene in the middle of the movie, Rowe gets sent to a different ward for drugging a nurse. (1) Kaysen causes a huge scene and demands to know where Rowe is. Kaysen is so distraught because she claims that Rowe is “All she has left.” Kaysen seems to have a lot of people come and go throughout her life. (2) In one part Kaysen states “I just don’t want to end up like my mother.” This could mean that Kaysen and her mother don’t share the greatest bond. As seen throughout the movie, there is a bandage on the wrist of Kaysen (3) suggesting that she might have cut her wrists when she had a “headache.” Kaysen having destructive behaviors, as mentioned before is an indicator of BPD. (4) In the early movie, it shows how promiscuous she could be. She had a one-time affair with a married college professor who wanted more than she did. She also had an on and off relationship with a boy named Toby who was later drafted in the military, but decided to run away and take Kaysen with him. But, she declined because she didn’t want to leave
The movie, Fifty Shades of Grey, portrayals its dominant ideology sexuality through the story between two main characters: a female literature student named Anastasia Steele, and a young male billionaire Christian Grey. In this movie, it indicates strong traditional heterosexuality, and it reflects the gender roles about submission and dominance, which leads to gender inequality through misinformation. Although entertaining and refreshing, this movie brings more negative impacts more than positive ones.