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Intro to Psychology Terms
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Our group collectively decided to choose the movie Fight Club as the movie to review for this case study. Fight Club was released on October 15, 1999 and is based off the novel written by Chuck Palahniuk in 1996. The movie was directed by David Fincher and featured several outstanding actors such as Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. We settled on reviewing Fight Club due to the films’ psychologically thrilling nature. The first psychological theory in Fight club that we will be covering is the theory of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) which was formerly known as the Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). DID is classified by the presence of two or more distinct identity or personality states that regularly take control of an individual’s behavior accompanied by an inability to recall important personal information. It is a disorder characterized by identity fragmentation rather than proliferation of separate personalities. The common symptoms of DID include: unexplainable sleep problems, sudden return of traumatic memories, unexplainable events and the inability to be aware of them. The alternate identities present in an individual who suffers from DID are forms of coping mechanisms for the individual. …show more content…
Freud created psychoanalysis while working with patients suffering from hysteria. It is a search for the inference of behaviors, symptoms and events which represent the passages to reach greater self-knowledge. The examination of dreams is the most common. Others may include articulating feelings in artwork, poetry or other aspects of creativity. According to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory, personality is composed of three fundamentals. These three fundamentals of personality are recognized as the id, the ego and the superego; they work simultaneously to create complex human
Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, and Helena Bonham Carter. 1999. Amazon Instant Video, 2013. Web. 12 April 2014.
EYSENCK, page 475) Sigmund Freud developed a theory to explain psychoanalytic or psychodynamic theory he was the founder and practised as a psychotherapist and much of his work comes from self-analysis. Freud’s work suggests that early experiences determine adult personality; he identified five stages within the first five years of life. Freud believed that personality consisted of three main elements, The Id: Basic instincts present at birth (The pleasure principle)
In Palahniuk’s Fight Club, Tyler Durden is a conformist to society that experienced a personal tragedy which led him to disengage from the societal normality and found an organization known as Fight Club, an underground street fighting competition. Tyler was once an aspiring businessperson. His failure was the cause of his conformity. Tyler then began to work as a security guard, primarily conducting after hour duties. This led him to begin stealing left over human fat to create the ingredients for the manufacture of explosives with the aim of supplementing his income (Schuessler). Here a personal tragedy, specifically failure, led to a behavioural condition known as disengagement. Tyler retracted himself from the typical American societal expectations and rebelled through forms of crime and backlash.
The conflict between conformity and rebellion has always been a struggle in our society. Fight Club is a movie that depicts just that. The movie portrays the polarity between traditionalism and an anti-social revolt. It is the story of man who is subconsciously fed up with the materialism and monotony of everyday life and thereafter creates a new persona inside his mind to contrast and counteract his repetitive lifestyle.
"People may be born with some risk factors, while others may be triggered by physical or emotional trauma, stress, drug abuse, or physical illness." (Bjornlund, 2011) DID sufferers frequently report severe abuse as a child, either physical or sexual. (Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), Nov. 2014) “Child, persecutor, and protector identity states are often exhibited by DID sufferers.” (Rosik, 2012). Research shows that the development of the disorder is probably a mental response to interpersonal and environmental hardships, particularly at a young age when emotional abandonment or abuse can interfere with personality growth and development. (Goldberg, 2014) “The common belief among most professionals is the personality splintered or fractured before the age of five.” (Swartz, 2001) Victims use their multiple personalities as a coping mechanism when too difficult to remember the trauma they have been through. For example, in the study Recovering Identity, the abuse history
Fight Club is a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk. This is a story about a protagonist who struggles with insomnia. An anonymous character suffering from recurring insomnia due to the stress brought about by his job is introduced to the reader. He visits a doctor who later sends him to visit a support group for testicular cancer victims, and this helps him in alleviating his insomnia. However, his insomnia returns after he meets Marla Singer. Later on, the narrator meets Tyler Durden, and they together establish a fight club. They continue fighting until they attract crowds of people interested in the fight club. Fight club is a story that shows the struggles between the upper class and lower class people. The upper class people here undermine the working class people by considering them as cockroaches. In addition, Palahniuk explores the theme of destruction throughout the book whereby the characters destroy their lives, body, building and the history of their town.
People often think that D.I.D. (Dissociative Identity Disorder) is something made up, something that a person is just inventing in order to get attention; that statement couldn’t be more Incorrect. Dissociative Identity Disorder, formally known at Multiple Personality Disorder, is a dissociative disorder, not a personality disorder or a psychosis. D.I.D. is a severe form of dissociation, a mental process which produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, emotion, behavior, or sense of identity. D.I.D. is thought to stem from trauma experienced by the person with the disorder. The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism; the person literally dissociates himself or herself from a situation or experience that is too violent, traumatic, or painful to assimilate with his or her conscious self.
Dissociative disorders can affect someone’s memory and make someone forget some of the important things in his or her life suck as their own identity. “When a dissociative identity disorder comes in to a person life it normally can make that person seem very distant and never aware of the other people in their lives.” (Diseases; 1) Which means that this person has absolutely no socials life. This person, when having a traumatic childhood, he or she can establish two or more different sets of personality. As an adult, this person may see an object that triggers the other personalities to come out; meanwhile, attempt to take control over the body.1a. SV; conj. adv, SV.) This other personality can be a different gender and he or she will most likely go by a different name. When this personality is in play the person’s original personality will have no memory of what the other being inside of him or her may have done.
Fight Club. Novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Screenplay by Jim Uhls. Dir. David Fincher. 1999. 20th Century Fox, 2002. DVD.
Austin is just an example of the millions living with Dissociative Identity Disorder, an often times misrepresented disorder. Novels, films, and the media have turned a personality disorder into a spectacle of false symptoms and misinterpreted treatments. I am arguing that Dissociative Identity Disorders is prevalent but treatable and not at all like the disorder portrayed in books and movies. In 1957 Dr. Corbett H. Thigpen wrote a nonfiction book about his case study of Eve White. For most people it was their first glimpse of Dissociative Identity Disorder, then known as Multiple Personality Disorder. In The Three Faces of Eve, Thigpen goes into detail about Eves two alter personalities, Eve Black and Jane. He discovers her personalities formed due to the traumatic death of Eve’s grandmother when she was age six. The book on his case study was such a hit that it was made into a major motion picture. Hollywood, however, took an interesting case st...
Dissociative identity disorder or DID for short, was previously referred to as multiple personality disorder. DID is a dissociative disorder involving a disturbance of identity in which two or more separate and distinct personalities or identities, control an individual's behavior at different times (National Alliance of Mental Illness). Meaning, that the person with DID has to have more than one separate identity that “inhabits” them for a period of time.
My topic of choice for this research paper is Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID. This appellation is rather new; therefore, most are more familiar with the disorder's older, less technical name: Multiple Personality Disorder or MPD. When first presented with the task of selecting a topic on which to center this paper, I immediately dismissed Dissociative Identity Disorder (which for the sake of brevity will be referred to as DID for the remainder of this paper) as a viable topic due to the sheer scope of the disorder. However after an exhaustive examination of other prospective topics, I found myself back at my original choice. There are several reasons why I chose DID. The foremost of which is the widespread fascination of this disorder by many different types of people; most of whom otherwise have no interest in psychology or its associated fields. One would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t been captivated at one time or another by the extraordinary, all too well known symptoms of this disorder. This fascination… dare I say ‘allure’ to this disorder is exemplified by the myriad of motion pictures that have been produced based on cases, real or fictitious, of DID. Another reason for my choice is what I feel is the insufficiency of effective treatments for DID. Despite what is known about this disorder, (which is relatively a lot) there are only two chief treatments for DID; the first and most prevalent is psychotherapy; also known as ”talk therapy”, the second is medication. The third and final reason for my choice is my own enchantment with DID. I must admit that ever since I read about Sue Tinker, a woman who was diagnosed with over 200 different personalities. In writing this paper I hope to discover more about this disorder and perhaps be able to identify a few areas that I feel might require more research on the part of psychologists specializing in DID.
At heart Fight Club is really a dark parody about consumerist discontent. First of all Fight Club was one of the most direct depictions of modern society. We can visualize the clear criticisms of the movie from the words of Jamey Hughton, “ ‘Fight Club’ is the kind of breathless experience that chews you up, spits you out, and leaves your senses jaded and disorientated with exhilaration.” Secondly, Fight Club was a real evolution of the modern ideals, the emergence of modern atomized individuals and consequently urban alienation. Finally, the movie points out male-female roles and the place of violence in the male identity. Critic, Gary Crowdus, says it best by writing, “Fight Club members have become so physically impassive, so emotionally anesthetized, and so spiritually numb, that it takes a broken nose, a split lip, or a few cracked ribs to reawaken their deadened nervous systems and to provide them with a meaningful sense of male identity” (46).
Sigmund Freud is best known for his development and use of psychoanalysis. The theory of psychoanalysis focuses on the concept of how our unconscious thoughts, feelings, and emotions play an active role in our daily lives. The id, ego, and superego are the three mental zones that encompass our psyche. Each zone has a specific function: The id functions on the pleasure principle; the ego on the protection of the individual; and the superego on protection of society. The degree of which each zone has been developed can be broken down and then analyzed. These three zones can be visualized by imagining a pie cut into three slices.
Sigmund Freud was one of the trailblazers of modern-day psychology. After several years of clinical practice, Sigmund Freud became concern about finding a new way to cure his patients. He developed a new way of treatment, the psychoanalytic therapy based on the existence of the unconscious. According to his theory, our behavior is driven by sexual and destructive feelings. Freud mentions in his psychoanalytical theory of personality there are five stages of psychosexual stages structure of personality. However, the three main elements of a personality are id, ego and superego, which come together to generate intricate human behavior. The three essential parts of human psyche are listed below.