A Psychological Aspect of Susan Smith: Dependent Personality Disorder
On October 25, 1994, Susan Smith drowned her two sons, Michael and Alex, in the John D. Long Lake in Union County, South Carolina. For nine days she lied about knowing where the boys were. On November 3, she confessed to the killings and would soon go to trial.
Susan’s defense team hired a psychiatrist to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of her. She was diagnosed as having dependent personality disorder. He described her as a person who “feels she can’t do anything on her own”. “She constantly needs affection and becomes terrified that she’ll be left alone” She was only depressed when she was alone. The psychiatrist studied her family history and concluded that based on her family history and his interviews with her, Susan had a tendency toward depression that began in her childhood. Susan’s attorney argued that his client was psychologically destabilized by a lifetime of betrayal. A father who killed himself when she was just six, a stepfather who sexually molested her as a child, a husband who cheated on her and a boyfriend who toyed with her affections (Pergament).
Her boyfriend testified that “the pleasure she got from sex was not physical pleasure, it was just in being close and being loved”. The psychiatrist testified that Susan had sex with four different men during the six-week period leading up to the murders and she had begun to drink heavily during this time (Pergament). Alcoholism is a component of dependent personality disorder.
After only four days of testimony, the defense rested its case. Susan was charged with two counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole in 30 years, the year 2025.
Dependent personality disorder is an inability to function without significant reliance on a forceful or dominant person providing direction. Individuals diagnosed with dependent personality disorder are usually quiet, and needy for attention, valuation, and social contact. Lack of self-confidence and relying on others are typical. Threatened with solitude or separation, a dependent disorder person may panic with feelings of profound helplessness (Gillihan). The person may be convinced that he/she is incapable...
... middle of paper ...
...ost effective in treatment (Gillihan).
In conclusion, The National Mental Health Association suggests that:
There are many types of help available for different personality disorders. Treatment may include individual, group, or family psychotherapy. Medications prescribed by the patient’s physician may also be helpful in relieving some of the symptoms of personality disorders including problems with anxiety and depression.
References
American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV. (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author
Bornstein, Robert F. (1993). The Dependent Personality. New York: Guilford Press
Gillihan, Lori. (n.d). Dependent Personality Disorder. Retrieved March 1, 2002, from http://cstl-coe.semo.edu
National Mental Health Association. (n.d.). Personality Disorders. Retrieved from http://www.nmha.org
Pergament, Rachel. (n.d.). Susan Smith: Child Murderer or Victim? Retrieved March 1, 2002 from http://www.crimelibrary.com
Rey, Joseph M. (1996) Antecedents of Personality Disorders in Young Adults. Psychiatric Times, 13 (2). Retrieved March 1, 2002, from http://www.mhsource.com
Stated by John Ramsey, “As I was walking through the basement, I opened the door to a room, and knew immediately that I’d found her because there was a white blanket- her eyes were closed, I feared the worse but yet- I’d found her” (Bardesley, and Bellamy). On December 26, 1996, one of the most famous, unsolved murders took place in Boulder, Colorado (Christopher). The murder caused many events including accusations, interrogations, false claims, and examining of evidence. The case also caused the Ramsey family to go through a hard time. The murder of JonBenet Ramsey was very shocking and caused a huge investigation that is yet unsolved.
Helling, SteveSmolowe, Jill. "Casey Anthony LIVING IN FEAR." People 76.13 (2011): 78. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web.
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fourth Edition. Arlington : American Psychiatric Association.
Susan Smith could have been a normal woman. If you passed her on the streets you wouldn’t know that she would turn out to be a killer. Susan had a secret though, a deadly secret. Susan Smith was a cold, calculating killer, capable of murder in cold blood. I believe Susan had many factors contributing to the state of mind she had before the murder of her two sons, like her traumatizing childhood and the many dysfunctional relationships she had.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
She was taken to the hospital after she tried to commit suicide, she took a bottle of aspirin. Her reason for taking the full bottle of aspirin was a major headache, which was also alarming to the psychiatrist. 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 casual sexuality.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a disorder in which individuals display overall instability, major shifts in mood, unstable self-images or relationships, and impulsivity
Torgersen, S. (2009). The nature (and nurture) of personality disorders. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 50(6), 624-632. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.2009.00788.x
Personality disorders have always been viewed as a possible category for a psychological disorder. However, in the new edition of the DSM, it will be getting its own diagnostic category. In viewing personality disorder, one can only agree that it should have its own diagnostic category. The reason that these changes are being supported is because of the causation, diagnosis, and treatment of personality disorders.
According to Varcarolis’s Foundations of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, “Borderline personality disorder is characterized by severe impairments in functioning. The Major feature of this disorder are patterns of marked instability in emotional control or regulation, impulsivity, identity or self-image distortions, unstable mood, and unstable interpersonal relationships.”(Halter, 2014). Susanna demonstrates many of these features. She has few friends, is easily angered, and demonstrates impulsive behavior and poor coping mechanisms. One main coping mechanism that is mentioned many times in the film is Susanna’s promiscuity. This is demonstrated by an affair with a married professor, a sexual encounter with her boyfriend on the unit while in the hospital, and the seduction of a male orderly on the milieu. 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
There are many psychological conditions that can affect the way a person acts, feels and goes on about their daily life. There is one in particular that caught my attention and it is the "Addictive Personality Disorder" or APD. According to Daniel H. Angres, MD "addictive personality disorder is a condition in which an individual is susceptible to addiction", which can range anywhere from drug abuse to pornography to even gambling. People are considered to be at risk of having this common but serious condition when one shows aggression, depression and lack of self control. People with this disorder can go from one addiction to the next or even hold multiple addictions at a time.
Susan starts her first person account with stating her educational background and job at the time. She had been teaching at a high school and decided that she wanted to return to school as a graduate student and assistant at a West Coast college. She describes how she enjoyed this life and was very happy, until later that year she would experience the onset of delusions. Susan is very descriptive in her account of her delusions. They started off as nightmares for her, each getting more and more gruesomely violent until she had awoken from her sleep thinking that her unconscious had been influenced by some sort of evil dictator. She describes the nightmares in very bloody and morbid detail, explaining how she had interpreted this as a sign that this evil dictator was attempting to convert her into a serial killer. She felt that there was a g...
Personality disorders are inflexible maladaptive personality traits that cause significant impairment of social and occupational functioning. Personality disorders can affec...
Sexual molestation, beating, neglect, burning, and verbal abuse. All of these horrible happenings are believed to be linked to a condition known as Multiple personality disorder (MPD). Multiple personality disorder, also known as dissociative identity disorder, is a mental illness in which a person has two or more identities or personalities. Single personalities randomly take control of the individual's behavior. Usually, the sufferer gives the personalities their own names. These multiple personalities almost always have characteristics that greatly differ from the person's primary identity. A person with this disorder always experiences some amount of amnesia. Most of the time the individual forgets what each personality has done or said.
The World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD 10) includes 10 common forms of personality disorder there is a common connection between the personality traits of all. Every single person has their own ways of thinking, feeling, reacting, and relating to certain things. In the instance when one of those elements does not work correctly and is essentially dysfunctional warrant the diagnosis of personality disorder. There is a fine line between the diagnosis of personality disorder and a mental disorder, which makes it hard to diagnose at times.