Howard Hughes Obsessive Compulsive Disor

The movie that I chose to do my project on is known as “The Aviator”, and the mental illness that I had was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder also known as OCD. The character in the movie that I examined was Howard Hughes who is played by the famous actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
There were only two symptoms for OCD on the DSM-V handout and they were both portrayed many times by Howard Hughes throughout the movie. The first symptom is recurrent obsessions or compulsions. This symptom can be seen in many scenes throughout the film. There were two scenes in the bathroom that really stood out. In one scene Howard Hughes is washing his hands and is trying to eliminate any particle of dust on him. He was obviously obsessed with being clean and he could not leave the bathroom until he was absolutely polished.

His is an obvious symptom shown in the movie. In another seen in that same bathroom, a man comes in with crutches and has trouble walking. Howard was washing his hands and the man came to wash his hands as well. The man asked Howard for a towel to dry his hands, but Howard could not stop washing his hands or he would have to go over the process again. He ignored the man and then told him he couldn’t. This obviously portrays an obsession, and it even portrays some of the next symptom. The next symptom on the handout is significant distress or impairment, or disruption by symptoms for more than one hour a day. Howard was obviously disrupted by his symptoms and thus could not give the man a towel. There are many other scenes that show this symptom. There was a scene where a Janitor was mopping the floor, and Howard could not stop staring at him. The man was cleaning very slowly and Howard could not handle the uneven way he was mopping. This caused him to lose concentration, and to end up repeating the same word to the person he was