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Research on media portrayal of mental illness research paper
Dissociative identity disorder psychodynamic psychotherapy
Dissociative identity disorder psychodynamic psychotherapy
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Frankie & Alice is a true story of a black go-go dancer stripper from the seventy’s named Frankie, played by Halle Berry. She has times of black-outs and triggered extreme mood swings that she cannot remember. These episodes land her in the psychiatric ward multiple times. She is normally discharged right away. One night in particular a new doctor, Dr. Oz, examined her. This doctor recommended that she be held for further examination. The other doctors, against Dr. Oz’s wishes, allowed Frankie to check herself out. Frankie begins to notice things that are out of the ordinary. Like clothes in her closet that she did not buy, money missing, and purchases written in her check book that she has no recollection of. ‘Frankie’ (we later learn this …show more content…
is Alice) attends the wedding of a girl who she grew up with. While at the reception, Frankie confronts the bride. The bride gets very upset and angry and wants her gone. Frankie fights the people trying to remove her from the wedding and ends up in prison. She has no recollection of this happening and decides to check herself into the psychiatric ward to avoid a prison stay. During her hospitalization, Dr. Oz places Frankie under hypnosis. While under hypnosis two personalities are discovered: Alice, a racists white women from the south and Genius, an extremely smart seven-year-old. Frankie suffers from dissociative identity disorder. The diagnostic criteria for dissociative identity disorder are A) “the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states” B) “at least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person’s behavior” C) “inability to recall important personal information” and D) “the disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance or a general medical condition” (Barlow & Durand, 2012, p. 197). Frankie meets all the diagnostic criteria. It seems as though Frankie is being honest throughout the film. Because her mother is still alive, the psychologist is able to cross-check certain information with her later in the film when Dr. Oz meets her mother. Although it is not completely clear in the film, it seems as though Frankie’s episodes are brought on by stress and life events.
Things that unknowingly remind her of the past cause her to shift personalities. In the first shift we see as an audience, Frankie steps on a baby doll rattle. She picks up the doll and begins to hear a baby’s cry. She walks over to the crib in the room to see that there is no baby there. She shifts into Alice, who is an white southern women with extreme racism who says, “Frankie is not here.” We later learn through hypnosis that Frankie is suppressing memories of her past. These memories include Frankie falling in love with her best friends boyfriend, Mr. Pete, (her best friend was the bride at the wedding Alice crashed) and running away with him. The two of them get into a car crash and Mr. Pete ends up dead. It also includes her pregnancy and birth to Mr. Pete and hers child. Her mother suffocated the baby after delivery because it was a white child. Any memories of these events, like certain songs and baby toys, cause Frankie to …show more content…
dissociate. At the end of the film, Frankie is able to hear and distinguish the other voices in her head. She is also able to remember the memories through watching tapes of her dissociations that occurred while under hypnosis. The film does not show the rest of her treatment but Dr. Oz is heard telling Frankie that she will have to learn to live together with her other personalities in order to get better. The film suggests that after she sees her other personalities through the videos, she is instantly able to distinguish them and join them and live a normal life. This is an inaccurate representation of the prognosis. The prognosis of dissociative identity disorder is not very promising.
There are few studies, experiments, or controlled research done on the treatment of dissociative identity disorder. The textbook states that “only 5 of 20 patients achieve a full integration” and “12 out of 54 patients had achieved integration 2 years after presenting for treatment” (Barlow & Durand, 2012, p. 203). The goal of treatment is to identify the triggers that cause the dissociation and “neutralize them” (Barlow & Durand, 2012, p. 203). The patient “must confront and relive” (Barlow & Durand, 2012, p. 203) the trauma and triggers in order to gain control of the situations. Hypnosis is commonly used to bring unconscious memories to the conscious. There is “no evidence that hypnosis is a necessary part of treatment” (Barlow & Durand, 2012, p. 203) but may be efficient because of the similarity between dissociation and the process of
hypnosis. The film depicted a person suffering from dissociative identity disorder quite well. The symptoms and causes matched up with my research and learnings in class and from the textbook. The only part that did not show an accurate representation was at the end of the film when the treatment was rushed. The scene in which Dr. Oz is video taping Frankie during hypnosis provided particular insight into the disorder, allowing the spectators to see the huge shifts in personalities while seeing Frankie’s repressed memories come to life. The disorder was treated as a serious matter while being interesting to watch. I would recommend the film to others because of the accurate representation of the psychological issue being portrayed.
2. Frankie's mother has a baby, Margaret. Because of the lack of money the family can't
With this in mind, it is evident that the character of this short story lives a life of structure, precision, and order, which presents itself as a major clue for her having this condition based on the disorders symptoms. It can also be visibly seen that Louisa is quite upset when the order in her house is disturbed as she is constantly worrying about something being out of place or appearing untidy, as well as her constantly cleaning up and reorganizing her possessions after Joe Dagget comes to visit her. For example, while Louisa and Joe are attempting to have a conversation about the weather, work, and family life, Joe picks up the books on the table and puts them back in the wrong order, which consequently makes Louisa nervous and anxious to arrange the books back in their original proper order.
She explains to the community that the current cycle that her father and the adults created is not going to work out forever. While under the current cycle, many outsiders snuck their way inside the community and stole money and food. Not only that, the watchers noticed that the thieves carried guns. She mentions to the crowd about her recurring nightmares where she is levitating and flies toward the door of her room.
Have you ever wondered how your life would be if there were two of you or maybe even three of you, but all within the same body? It would probably get really hectic really fast within your mind. Most people including myself would assume that a person could not possibly live a life in that manner or at least not a very functioning one for that matter. Fortunately for a woman named Frankie, that could not be farther from the truth. Frankie and Alice is a movie based off of a true life story of a woman who suffered from a dissociative identity disorder (DID) in the 1970s. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), DID, formerly known as multiple personality disorder involves a disturbance of identity in which two or more separate
Dissociation can occur any time in our life and there is two kinds of dissociation, childhood and adulthood. Child dissociation is different from adult dissociation. Child dissociation occurs when the child is actually experiencing some sort of trauma, like abuse. Adult dissociation happens in situations like stress or family related issues. Another difference is that child dissociation does not last very long (usually a hour), but adult dissociation lasts for a longer period of time. Dissociation occurs when something so painful is happening that the mind leaves the body to go elsewhere. In Martha Stout’s essay “When I Woke up On Tuesday, It Was Friday,” she defines dissociation as the mind leaving the body and transporting our awareness to a place so far away, it feels like the person is watching from outside their body. In her essay, she tells her audience about the dangers of dissociation, such as blackout, unable to relate to others, a sense of not knowing who one is, and the sense of lost time. She also includes some of her patient’s stories and experiences with dissociation, how they struggle for sanity and how she helps them see a new meaning of life. She tells her audience that often when patients or people dissociate they have lack of self-control and self-awareness. Dissociation can happen to anybody in a dire situation, for instance a child getting abused or some other traumatic event. Martha Stout has her audience/reader rethink about dissociation particularly the harmful side of it. She has help me see that although dissociation is helpful, it could lead to suicide thought, accidents, loss of identity and sanity.
Frankie was a mentally challenged boy who was adopted by doc after being abandoned by his mother. One major thing Frankie did in the book was he stole a gift form a jewelry store for doc.
Symbolism is the element that plays the starring role in this production, coyly divulging the clues necessary to illuminate the reality of her psychosis. The physical triggers of said psychosis belong solely to the room she and her husband slept in; now a playroom, it had obviously gone through many other transformations as had this woman, who despised it (nursery, gym, playroom). More importantly, it is the wallpaper that has caught and held her mind's eye.
The two women follow the pattern of those going mad: eventually, they begin to see things and form relationships with the images that reside only in their minds. The narrator gives into the figments of her imagination and begins to metamorphose this “thing” she imagines behind the wallpaper as a hallucinogenic image of herself. This “woman” becomes a deadly combination: best friend and worst enemy. She views the woman as trapped, and, in order to free herself from this non-fulfilling life, she must free the woman. Elisa also receives an uninvited guest, a tinker who she perceives as the perfect emblem of freedom.
Her tense mind is then further pushed towards insanity by her husband, John. As one of the few characters in the story, John plays a pivotal role in the regression of the narrator’s mind. Again, the narrator uses the wallpaper to convey her emotions. Just as the shapes in the wallpaper become clearer to the narrator, in her mind, she is having the epiphany that John is in control of her.
The musical piece “Alice’s Theme” was composed in 2010 by composer Danny Elfman. This piece was written for Walt Disney Pictures’ “Alice in Wonderland”. Danny Elfman has represented Alice as lonely, questioning herself and anxious until the end of the film where she discovers her true purpose. Her journey is gradually revealed and represented through the different sections, instruments and lyrics. This is through the successful use of all the musical elements. These musical elements include duration, expressive devices, pitch, structure and texture.
While she is analyzing John and Jennie’s change in behavior, she concludes that “he [asks her] all sorts of questions, too, and [pretends to be] loving and kind. As if [she] couldn’t see through him” (Gilman 402). She takes John’s act of kindness and care as a disguise to find out more about her sickness. She thinks John and Jennie “are secretly affected by it” (402). John has control over her life so she does not understand why he feels the need to treat her right. She thinks his kindness and love is temporary, so she protects herself by pushing him away. Her sickness is making her feel paranoid about having the wallpaper to herself. The yellow wallpaper is the first thing she feels that John does not have control over. A part of her recognizes that John is changing and the other part of her tries to understand his
Frankie and Alice a film based off a true story, follows a young African American Frankie Murdoch, Halle Berry, in her struggle with Multiple Personality Disorder; now referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder. Dissociative Identity Disorder is the reaction to trauma as way to help avoid bad memories. It is characterized by having two or more personalities present and each may have unique names, backgrounds, and characteristics. The film takes place in Los Angeles in 1973. Frankie experiences a traumatic event during her adolescence years with the death of her white lover, and then her mother murdering her newborn child after she realizes it was fathered by the white man. The movie begins at Frankie’s job as a Go-Go Dancer, where she is
The title character, Alice, is a young girl around pre-teen age. In the real world, the adult characters always look down on her because of her complete nonsense. She is considered the average everyday immature child, but when she is placed in the world of "Wonderland," the roles seem to switch. The adult characters within Wonderland are full of the nonsense and Alice is now the mature person. Thus creating the theme of growing up'. "...Alice, along with every other little girl is on an inevitable progress toward adulthood herself"(Heydt 62).
Catharsis is paramount for Nina to settle her internal conflicts and overcome her problems. Hypnotherapy should be applied during regular therapy sessions to combat Nina’s dissociative identity disorder. Her sub-personality must be integrated and merged into a single personality, before other sub-personalities appear. If these therapies and medications are continued consistently and Nina cooperates with treatment, the likelihood of a successful recovery is high.
Grohol, J. M. (n.d.). Psych Central: Dissociative Identity Disorder Treatment. Psych Central - Trusted mental health, depression, bipolar, ADHD and psychology information. Retrieved May 24, 2011, from http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx18t.htm