Girl Interrupted Review
Cherie Pryor
Denver College of Nursing
Girl Interrupted is a film about a young woman, Susanna Kaysen, who voluntarily enters a psychiatric facility in Massachusetts. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a portrayal of psychiatric care in the 1960’s. The film is based on the memoirs of Susanna Kaysen and her experiences during an 18 month stay at a mental institution. During her visit, Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The film depicts psychiatric care, diagnoses, and treatments from a different era. At the beginning of the film, Susanna is speaking with a psychologist. She appears out of touch with reality and discusses experiencing having lapses in time. As the psychiatrist
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
For example; Lisa, the diagnosed sociopath, displays very little empathy for those around her. This is made clear when she sees Daisy’s post suicide body and is not saddened whatsoever. Another accurate portrayal is the patient with anorexia nervosa Janet. Janet refuses to eat, is in denial about her condition, is emotionally labile, and is always exercising. I also thought the film portrayed life in a psychiatric facility accurately. There were staff members performing frequent checks on the patients, nurses administering medications behind a window, and patients hanging out around the milieu when they aren’t in therapy. In conclusion, Girl Interrupted displayed many accurate traits of the psychiatric disorders depicted. Susanna Kaysen’s memoirs provided a strong backbone for a film to show outsiders what life was like inside a psychiatric facility in the 1960’s.
References:
Wick, D and Konrad, C (Producers), & Mangold, J (Director). 1999. Girl interrupted [Motion Picture]. United States: Columbia
We know that she tried to kill herself by taking a bottle of aspirin with vodka even though she denies it so many times claiming that she took it because she had a severe headache, but everyone including Susanna knew it wasn’t true, she just didn’t want to admit it. The second unhealthy behavior was Susanna’s attempts to remain in meaningless relationships to avoid feeling abandoned. In the middle of the movie, she had a flashback of the affair she had with one of the teachers and with a guy that she met at a party after her high school graduation. In both cases, she was having meaningless sex and staying in the relationships so that she felt loved and wanted, and not rejected. The third unhealthy behavior was her mood swings. She experienced a shift in moods and felt like she had no sense of herself at all, she felt herself getting worse. Toward the end of the movie, Susanna was convinced she wasn’t going to get better and she even got defensive over what Dr. Wick (Vanessa Redgrave) and Nurse Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg) were telling her about her diagnosis. Luckily Nurse Valerie insist she is not crazy but
During the mid-1900`s, mental illnesses were rarely discussed in mainstream media due to negative stigma surrounding mental illnesses. As a result, characters in film rarely had mental disorders because of the directors` worries of audiences` reactions to how the illnesses were portrayed. Director, Edward Dmytryk, however, attempted to diminish the stigma through his film Raintree County (1957) with Susanna Drake Shawnessy`s mental instability. Elizabeth Taylor`s portrayal of Susanna, however, heightened the stigma surrounding mental illness as Susanna constantly acted immature and childlike.
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the film Girl, Interrupted directed by James Mangold authors both look at American psychiatric institutions of the 1960s and explore the idea that the hospitals act as microcosms for society. A microcosm is a small universe representative of a larger one thus suffers the same problems of conformity and rebellion, prejudice against minorities and authority figures ruling absolutely. Both authors use stylistic techniques to position the audience to respond to ideas common in both texts.
The film gives a historical overview of how the mentally ill have been treated throughout history and chronicles the advancements and missteps the medical community has made along the way. Whittaker recounts the history of psychiatric treatment in America until 1950, he then moves on to describe the use of antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia. He critically summarizes that it is doctors, rather than the patients, who have always calculated the evaluation of the merits of medical treatment, as the “mad” continue to be dismissed as unreliable witnesses. When in fact it is the patient being treated, and their subjective experience, that should be foremost in the evaluation. The film backs up this analysis with interviews of people, living viable lives in the town of Geel, Belgium. I would recommend this film to anyone interested in the history of medicine and specifically to those examining mental illness. It provides a balanced recounting of historical approaches to mental illness, along with success stories of the people of Geel, Belgium. And although I had to look away during the viewing of a lobotomy procedure, I give credit to the power of the visual impact the footage
Most people are likely to relate Hollywood with money. If a person lives in the Hollywood area, people assume she or he is probably rich. If she or he is a Hollywood movie star, the person probably makes a lot of money. Therefore, to follow that line of thought, when Hollywood producers make a movie, they make it just for money. And some filmmakers do seem to make films only for the money the movies will earn. The action movie "Die Hard", the fantasy movie "Star Wars", and the adventure movie "Jurassic Park" are examples of exciting movies that were made just for the money by satisfying the audiences' appetite for escapism.
For an example in one particular scene, Tiffany has an episode of irritability towards her sister with assumption that her sister hates her; which included loud inappropriate comments and an abrupt exit. There were also symptoms shown such as an excess desire for sex. Tiffany casually talks about all the men she has slept with since her husband’s death, including “the whole office” at her previous job. This is a way she has learned how to deal with her depression.
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.
Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.
The two texts emphasized in this essay include Elyn R. Saks’ The Center Cannot Hold : My Journey Through Madness and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces. “There were many days when I believed I was nothing more than the Lady of Charts - a crazy woman who’d faked her way into a teaching job and would soon be discovered for what she really was and put where she really belonged - in a mental hospital” (Saks 263). Saks entire life was a struggle because of the mental illness she had since a young age, schizophrenia. Most of her younger years were lived being misunderstood by her parents and peers alike. She turned to options like substance abuse and self harm to cope with her deteriorating situation in life. There came a point where she realized that she was better than her illness and was able to overcome it with the help and guidance of a few mentors. Now, Saks is a very successful assistant dean, as well as a professor of law, psychology, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences at the University of Southern California Gould Law School. Saks also went on to receive the award for MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and write her book. Joseph Campbell was also very successful in the same way because he wrote a book that is very complex and still relevant in this day and age. Campbell made the mold and Saks’ life fits it
...e but that she is also sad and very lonely. Nevertheless, the scene at the end of the movie, showing Rebecca’s death, was inevitable that left me feeling empty, and empathetic towards Rebecca. However, from a clinical view, I am a bit insulted in how the media depicted her disorder as being inhumane and monstrous. On the same note, it disappointed me to see that many viewers would get a misguided impression of the people who suffer from bipolar disorder.
There are many movies that portray mental and psychological disorders, from these I chose the award winning movie: Rain Man. Rain Man was released on December 14, 1988. In the beginning of this movie, a car dealer, Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise), learns that his father has died and returns home to Cincinnati to attend his funeral. Charlie and his father had a falling out with each other starting when Charlie was sixteen years old and decided to steal his father’s car for a victory lap around town. His father reported the car stolen, resulting in Charlie being arrested. Charlie’s friends got off with a warning, however Charlie’s father decided to leave his son in jail for two days before he got him out. Charlie’s mother died when he was two years
The initial factor that leads to the narrator’s following slip into the madness is John, her physician and husband. John’s definite dominant and highly respected figure generates a controlling relationship with her, taking away the narrator’s freedom even in the slightest aspect of her life. For instance, as simple as to write a journal, she is not able to do so because “John would thinks it’s absurd”(79). Her husband’s therapeutic process and opinions on how to handle and treat her mental sickness makes her not to trust her own thoughts doubting them instead, and restricts her to do anything in her will. At one point when the narrator tries to talk to John and said that she ”really was not gaining here” (80) and she “wished he would take [her] away”(80), he calms her by suggesting that she should not be having such worries and he replies “My darling, … There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours… Can you trust me as a physician when I tell you so?”(80). This demonstrates how John’s manipulative authority causes her to feel unfaithful and irrational. John does not notice that every instance that he refuses and shuts her out, her need to express her thoughts
...ot simply a social analogy portraying modern society's dislike and ultimate destruction of anyone who consistently upsets the status quo. It is this, but it also is exactly what the story line indicates. It is a graphic story clearly showing the lack of humanity, oppression, coercion, brute force and destructiveness of the modern "mental health" field. Without the firm denial of Man and his mind, they're largely the same thing in the end, none of these things could ever occur. The movie contains many situations where the status quo attempts to control those who choose to walk outside the system and force them back into line. Modern psychiatry and psychology primarily serve that function of control seemingly required by society and civilization. It is not about help and betterment. It has never been about help or betterment.
Joan Crawford, was one of the most popular and well known actresses in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s. Although her life was more extraordinary than mundane, she suffered from multiple personality disorders, as do many Americans. Personality disorders are patterns of inflexible traits that disrupt social life or work and may distress the affected individual (Rathus, 2016). The movie Mommie Dearest, captures moments in Crawford’s life that show her struggles with her personality disorders. Throughout the movie, you watch her personalities become more prominent and abusive. Her main disorders include borderline and paranoid personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as histrionic and narcissistic personality disorder.
Some symptoms of BPD can include fear of abandonment (1), unstable relationships (2), self-harm (3), and destructive behavior (4). In one scene in the middle of the movie, Rowe gets sent to a different ward for drugging a nurse. (1) Kaysen causes a huge scene and demands to know where Rowe is. Kaysen is so distraught because she claims that Rowe is “All she has left.” Kaysen seems to have a lot of people come and go throughout her life. (2) In one part Kaysen states “I just don’t want to end up like my mother.” This could mean that Kaysen and her mother don’t share the greatest bond. As seen throughout the movie, there is a bandage on the wrist of Kaysen (3) suggesting that she might have cut her wrists when she had a “headache.” Kaysen having destructive behaviors, as mentioned before is an indicator of BPD. (4) In the early movie, it shows how promiscuous she could be. She had a one-time affair with a married college professor who wanted more than she did. She also had an on and off relationship with a boy named Toby who was later drafted in the military, but decided to run away and take Kaysen with him. But, she declined because she didn’t want to leave