Silver Linings Playbook, By David O. Russell

‘Silver Linings Playbook’ is a movie by director David O. Russell. The main character, Pat Solitano, is an ex-history teacher in his mid 30’s who is institutionalized for past events. During his marriage, Pat is under the assumption of having a loving one. However, his wife has been cheating on him with another history teacher at the school where they both work. Pat finds out about his wife cheating on him with the history teacher in a compromising situation and goes on a rampage that ends with court-ordered institutionalization. Pat is taken out of the mental facility by his mother and is brought back home to his father and the rest of his family. His father is said to have some of the same tendencies as Pat, such as anger problems, displaying them at Eagles football games and in a fight scene with Pat in the movie. Pat, in an attempt to recuperate his marriage and allow his wife to return to him, visits a therapist to talk to him about his problems and motivations.

Diagnosis:

During talks with his therapist, Pat talks to his therapist about having bipolar disorder. Specifically, this scene includes Pat’s therapist noting that he has undiagnosed bipolar disorder and Pat replies with "Yeah, with mood swings... weird thinking brought on

by severe stress…” (Russell, 2012). According to the DSM-V, bipolar disorder is characterized by mood swings consisting of mania, hypomania, and/or depression. Hallucinations and delusions are also said to occur among those with bipolar 1 disorder (Legg, 2017). Pat shows each of these symptoms in various scenes throughout the movie. The biggest symptom that Pat displays is mania. Pat is shown with decreased need for sleep in the beginning scenes of the movie while reading ‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway. While reading, Pat stays up until 4 am and rushes into his parents room to talk about the disappointment he finds with the book, yelling about the plot. He also becomes more talkative and is subject to racing thoughts in this scene as well with a long monologue criticizing Hemingway’s work. In other scenes, Pat is shown constantly running, showing that he begins to have increased goal-oriented activity. He also shows his manic episodes through a frantic search for his wedding video. In this scene, Pat, while looking through the house, shows irritability, restlessness, and poor judgement that results in him elbowing his mom in the face and having a mental breakdown while his father wrestles him to his bed.
Hallucinations and delusions are also symptoms of bipolar 1 disorder.

While on a supposed ‘date’ with Tiffany, his friend’s wife’s sister, he hallucinates the song ‘My Cherie Amour’ by Stevie Wonder. He hears this song while in a fight with Tiffany that triggers memories of his wife’s infidelity. Not only does Pat suffer from hallucinations, but he has delusions as well. While talking about his traumatic experience with his wife, he tells his therapist of the time he experiences one of his delusions, “...about a week before the incident, I called the cops and I told them that my wife and the history guy were plotting against me by embezzling money from the local high school, which wasn't true. It was a delusion.” (Russell,

2012).
Although not explicitly displayed, with the medication that he claims to take, one may also assume that he has dealt with depressive episodes as well. For example, in a scene with Tiffany, Pat mentions some of the medication he has taken for his disorder, “I used to be on Lithium and Seroquel and Abilify, but... They made me foggy, and they also made me bloated.” (Russell, 2012). Each medication mentioned is used for treating both manic and depressive episodes of bipolar disorder and are considered mood stabilizers (Galan, 2016). His experience with depression, however, is not dealt with in the movie as much as his time spent in manic episodes.

Cause of the Behavior:
This disorder was most likely a result of both nature and nurture. Although not explicitly said, Pat’s dad experiences the same aggressive outbreaks that Pat shows in his manic fits of rage. From a biological standpoint, Pat may have inherited a higher chance of getting bipolar disorder from his father. At the same time, he might have also learned from a young age that behaviors, such as manic ones, were normal and thus, developed his bipolar disorder, not just from his genetics, but from observational learning as well. Although he acquired his disorder younger in his life, Pat while in a meeting with his therapist, notes that his experience with infidelity caused him to see that he has Bipolar 1 disorder, “...then the shower incident happened and that's when everything snapped, so I then realized that, oh, wow, I've been dealing with [bipolar disorder] my whole life. And without any supervision I've been doing it all on my own with no help and basically I've been white-knuckling it this whole time.” (Russell, 2012).