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Girl interrupted movie summary
Clinical case study borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder literature review
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Girl, Interrupted is a personal memoir from Susanna Kaysen, who narrates the story of her diagnosis with borderline personality disorder and psychoneurotic depression in the mid-sixties. She is voluntarily confined in Claymore Hospital after attempting suicide with a bottle of aspirin and alcohol after engaging in an illicit relationship with her past high school teacher. Miss Kaysen is a detatched emotionaless young girl of eighteen who comes from a well off family, but is emotionally conflicted. She had casual relationships with the opposite sex and not many female companions throughout her high school years. Her family finds her odd and believes she needs help from a psychologist because of her unsocial interactions with young adults her …show more content…
age. At this time most women are expected to follow the path considered the norm by becoming a housewife while Susanna instead pursued writing.
Because of this she declines the socially stressed norm of going off to college to attend classes such as cooking. Her parents are flustered by her decision and looked down upon her. Once in Claymore’s walls her choices were also seen as a symptom, lack of path in life, by the psychiatrist. During her two years stay at the hospital Suzanna faces her illness experiencing unhappiness and a sense of lifelessness while she tries to figure out what people see is wrong with her. For some time Suzanna seems to enjoy the idea of mental illness and her situation at the hospital that she refers to as a parallel universe, for the reason that she finds herself not pushed into social norms. Eventually she comes to realize her actions of her diagnoses she is then able to recover and accept the help the doctors have for …show more content…
her. Presenting Problem and Diagnostic Formulation- Over a span of months Susanna Kaysen is examined and diagnosed. She is given therapy and many forms of drugs to try and solve her disorders. Her impairment seems slight for the time period and she struggles with the question about whether she is truly ill throughout the film. They as well go over the idea of what is normal and what is crazy, which prove to have blurry distinctions in Susanna’s life. Her symptoms as quoted from the doctor included, “instability of self-image”, “uncertain to make long-term goals”, “pessimistic”, “unstable relationships/casual sex”, “impulsiveness” and “social contrariness.” However, her first action taken on these symptoms was her attempt to suicide. The second action exemplified from her symptoms was the hospital scene where they showed the bodily harm she had done to her arm. She had bruises over her wrist and explained to the doctor she didn’t have any bones in her hand, which the doctor considered crazy person talk. Soon after this, she has a flashback to a scene where she has casual sex with a man. In the flashback she pushes the man emotionally away when he begins to draw closer to her. Whe Suzanna swiftky leaves the room the flashback ends. This is an example of what the doctor refers to when noting Susanna has symptoms of unstable relationships. He as well states she has few close friends and a poor relationship with her mother and father. Susanna as well claimed to the doctors and other patients in the ward that she was just depressed and that was her reasoning for being at the hospital. This was a sign of the symptom, pessimistic that the doctor listed to classify her under borderline personality, as well as the rest she exhibited listed previously. Some further symptoms was her history of troubled adolescents including rebellious behavior by rejecting educational goalsset by her parents and the system. Her symptoms in the end were more internal self-destructive personality traits of a young adult than external illness symptoms. Her last symptom viewed from the movie memoir was her constant interest and thought of suicide. Suzanna was very intrigued by the idea of death and at times it was viewed that she wanted to expereince death more than life. The development of borderline personality disorder like told in the movie by the doctor can be highly developed biologically by one's genetics. Or as well, it can be established through social factors being the lack of parental connection seen in the movie when young Susanna’s parents let her be taken away to an unfamiliar place for an unknown amount of time by an unknown man driving a cab. This exemplified a lack of attention seen between Susanna and her parents as they sent their daughter away with little questioning. In addition, child abuse, whether emotional or physical could be seen to have an effect on children and in the movie Susanna’s mother speaks of a time when Susanna was a baby and happened to roll off the bed, break her leg, and need a full body cast. The movie may not suggest that this could be a form of early child abuse, but it did come off as a strange story personally to me. All of these actions could lead to the development of borderline personality disorder within and individual and specifically could have been what took place within Susanna psychologically from her social surroundings. I believe Suzanna had borderline personality disorder and depression because she was unable to keep a healthy relationship with peers or her family. She as well continuously thought about suicide. In the movie she showed signs of complete detatchment from the rest of society and lack of empathy for others or herself. Suzanna had little interest in anything of value to young adults her age as well and remained emotionless most of the movie. These all are symptoms exhibited by persons with slight borderline personality disorder and a heftier sign of depression. Suzanna's act of an attempt to commit suicide also examplifies her syptoms of illness and necessity to be submitted into a hospital for care. I believe most of Suzanna's syptoms are psychological as the film does not give you much more to go off of, however there is a sign of social detatchment from the parents to their child, Suzanna. I beleive this small sign of social factor influence is not enough in this case to be the reason to Suzanna's diagnosis. Social factors on women at this time, however, are very much part of the picture and dictate what a woman is and isn't expected to do. These social factors may be the reason for Suzanna's acceptance into the hospital, but cannot account for her mental illness as a whole. Treatment Plan and Recommendations- To treat Susanna, I would recommend or use psychotherapy so that she can develop a transference relationship with the therapist. This therapy is used to enhance the patient’s ability to understand and get familiar with themselves, which in Susanna’s case she very much needs. Susanna needs psychodynamic therapy to get to know herself and figure out the underlying issue in the movie of whether she has a disorder or not and if so figure this knowledge out to better herself. As well, by creating a relationship with Susanna’s therapist as she did eventually in the movie she can then also learn to form relationships with others and break the symptom of unstable relationships in borderline patients like herself. More specific to psychodynamic therapy is the approach of dialectical therapy, which would really benefit Susanna as it focuses on changing negative ways of thinking, one of Susanna’s symptoms to her diagnosis of depression and borderline personality, including suicidal thoughts. Dialect therapy would integrate Susanna to learn to be more comfortable with her emotions like fear, sadness, and anger. She can then focus these emotions in a positive way and live a healthy lifestyle. Movie/Literacy Work Accuracies and Inaccuracies- The movie does not necessarily give you a good idea of what type of treatment she receives besides giving her lots of medication but they do portray some of Susanna’s symptoms throughout the film.
From the information given in the movie Susanna did seem to have a slight diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and depression, and may be partly due to childhood events that took place in the family as well as psychological. However, the movie does seem to exaggerate her symptoms while having the viewer believe and question whether Susanna does have a disorder at all. Girl, Interrupted leads you to beg the question whether anyone can get put in a mental hospital. As ordinary as Susanna seemed to be at points in the movie, she did show a number of symptoms to be of concern and be fully diagnosed. She as well attempted suicide, creating concern enough to put her in a hospital for some time. By assimilating psychodynamic therapy into Susanna’s schedule and more specifically dialectical therapy, Susanna can be successfully treated and go on to live a successful and happy rest of her life is she so desires and in the movie as it turns out she does just
that.
The book “Dead Girls Don’t Lie” written by Jennifer Shaw Wolf focuses on a variety of different ideas and topics, mostly fixating the murder of the main character’s best friend Rachel. With this also comes gang violence, lost and found relationships, and the fact that some people will go to great extents in order to keep a lethal secret from the public eye. Rachel and Jaycee were best friends up until 6 months before where the book started. But, an altercation between them caused the breakup of their long lasted friendship. It is soon found out that Rachel was shot through her bedroom window, which is at first suspected to be gang violence. When Jaycee doesn’t answer her phone on the night Rachel was murdered, she received a text that circulates
The fourth Chapter of Estella Blackburn’s non fiction novel Broken lives “A Fathers Influence”, exposes readers to Eric Edgar Cooke and John Button’s time of adolescence. The chapter juxtaposes the two main characters too provide the reader with character analyses so later they may make judgment on the verdict. The chapter includes accounts of the crimes and punishments that Cooke contended with from 1948 to 1958. Cooke’s psychiatric assessment that he received during one of his first convictions and his life after conviction, marring Sally Lavin. It also exposes John Button’s crime of truancy, and his move from the UK to Australia.
This frustration acted as a vehicle for her to gain a desire to be more
In addition to the stereotypical gender roles and norms, Bonnie's mental health issues are extremely downplayed and almost ignored altogether. Early on in the novel, it is revealed that Bonnie is "nervous," and she suffers from "little spells" (Capote 7). Although she was taken to a hospital in Wichita, her problem continued to be ignored. While at the hospital, the doctors told her that "[her illness] was not in her head but in her spine- it was physical, a matter of misplaced vertebrae" (Capote 7). Instead of receiving help for her mental health problems, she is told that an operation on her spine would bring her back to her "old self" again. This pattern of women's mental health issues being ignored has continued throughout decades of history, with most the solutions to fixing their problems either range from going outside and receiving sunlight, to potentially dangerous operations that would most likely not help them in the end. If someone asks for help multiple times and is continually ignored or told that their problem will go away with time, it can start to make that person feel like they do not
Full Body Burden by Kristen Iversen is a book about a family living near a nuclear
In the poem “The One Girl at the Boys’ Party,” Sharon Olds uses imagery to convey pride in her daughter’s growing femininity. What would seem to be another childhood pool party for the girl turns into an event that marks a rite of passage to adulthood. Though the narrator is reluctant of her daughter’s search for an identity, she ultimately sees her daughter’s transformation to womanhood as admirable. Olds’ pride is first shown when the girl begins to lose her innocence from the unfamiliar surroundings of masculine men. The narrator says, “They will strip to their suits, her body hard and indivisible as a prime number” (5-6). The girl’s stiff and confident stature that this image conveys suggests that she is anxious yet willing to progress
The main character of this book is Susan Caraway, but everyone knows her as Stargirl. Stargirl is about 16 years old. She is in 10th grade. Her hair is the color of sand and falls to her shoulders. A “sprinkle” of freckles crosses her nose. Mostly, she looked like a hundred other girls in school, except for two things. She didn’t wear makeup and her eyes were bigger than anyone else’s in the school. Also, she wore outrageous clothes. Normal for her was a long floor-brushing pioneer dress or skirt. Stargirl is definitely different. She’s a fun loving, free-spirited girl who no one had ever met before. She was the friendliest person in school. She loves all people, even people who don’t play for her school’s team. She doesn’t care what others think about her clothes or how she acts. The lesson that Stargirl learned was that you can’t change who you are. If you change for someone else, you will only make yourself miserable. She also learned that the people who really care about you will like you for who you are. The people who truly love you won’t ask you to change who you are.
In “Girl Interrupted” Susanna Kaysen, the main character, goes through many episodes that give a picture of the disorder she’s suffering from. The first such incident occurs when the psychiatrist talks to Susanna about her failed suicide attempt. During the conversation, she is seen as confused and irritated by his presence. While the psychiatrist questions her, her mind seems to be somewhere else because she is having flashbacks of her past, maybe a sign of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Susanna seems uncertain about things, she claims that she does not know what she feels.
The personification of sadomasochistic ideals in the novel comes from Martin Vanger, head of the Vanger companies and, unknown to everyone, a serial rapist and murderer. For example, Vanger may very well have felt that his father, Gottfried Vanger, by raping him as a child, had forced him to not only become the man he became, but to accept his “fate.” Stekel and Brink also explained why many serial sadomasochists kill their victims, something he labeled the death clause. The death clause explained the idea of “the parapathic amalgamation of death and normal intercourse” (Stekel and Brink 2: 246). That is, that the algolagnic behavior is so ingrained into their mind, that they can only derive normal sexual pleasure through the ultimate pain one can inflict, death. The death clause is something that Vanger seemed to very much experience, and it would explain not only his torture chamber, but why he killed almost every girl he raped.
Therefore, she felt chronically empty and bored on the inside. For the eighth criterion, she does not meet this as Susanna was very passive in the way she dealt with feeling alienated. Instead of having intense anger or recurrent physical fights with others who she felt didn’t understand her, she simply withdrew from everything which is why she was very detached with others. Lastly, she does not meet the ninth criterion for borderline personality disorder as she never experienced any dissociative symptoms. For the most part, Susanna was very conscious of the pain that she was feeling and as detailed earlier in the description section went about connecting to her pain by self-harming herself to essentially outwardly showcase the suffering she was feeling on the
Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is categorized as science fiction because of the existence of time travel. However, the novel does not center on the schematics of this type of journey. Instead, the novel deals with the relationships forged between a Los Angeles woman from the 20th century, and slaves from the 19th century. Therefore, the mechanism of time travel allows the author a sort of freedom when writing this "slavery narrative" apart from her counterparts. Butler is able to judge the slavery from the point of view of a truly "free" black woman, as opposed to an enslaved one describing memories.
Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver Six thousand years ago in Northern Europe, a teenager named Torak woke up with his shoulder throbbing in pain. His father lies next to him, bleeding from an open wound. The two have been attacked by an enormous demon bear, which is bound to come back at any moment. As he bleeds out, Torak’s father can only bear to say a few more words. He says that the demon bear will only grow stronger with each kill it makes, and he also tells Torak that he has to go to the Mountain of the World Spirit in order to defeat the bear.
In the American society, we constantly hear people make sure they say that a chief executive officer, a racecar driver, or an astronaut is female when they are so because that is not deemed as stereotypically standard. Sheryl Sandberg is the, dare I say it, female chief operating officer of Facebook while Mark Zuckerberg is the chief executive officer. Notice that the word “female” sounds much more natural in front of an executive position, but you would typically not add male in front of an executive position because it is just implied. The fact that most of America and the world makes this distinction shows that there are too few women leaders. In Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In,” she explains why that is and what can be done to change that by discussing women, work, and the will to lead.
We have all heard the African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” The response given by Emma Donoghue’s novel Room, simply states, “If you’ve got a village. But if you don’t, then maybe it just takes two people” (Donoghue 234). For Jack, Room is where he was born and has been raised for the past five years; it is his home and his world. Jack’s “Ma” on the other hand knows that Room is not a home, in fact, it is a prison. Since Ma’s kidnapping, seven years prior, she has survived in the shed of her capturer’s backyard. This novel contains literary elements that are not only crucial to the story but give significance as well. The Point-of-view brings a powerful perspective for the audience, while the setting and atmosphere not only affect the characters but evokes emotion and gives the reader a mental picture of their lives, and the impacting theme along-side with conflict, both internal and external, are shown throughout the novel.
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