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Psychology in movies concept paper
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The Damaged Petals of a Wallflower
Many times what we see in movies do not betray the reality of psychological disorders. It may be that the characters are over exaggerated or that the symptoms are for a different illness rather than the one said to be. However, there are some movies that do a good job describing an illness as well as providing a interesting story. Such as the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the main character is Charlie Kelmeckis. With Charlie the audience is able to see the reality of several illness. Using the lectures provided in psychology class along with Psych Central I am about to "diagnosis" Charlie with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression due to PTSD.
The movie starts with Charlie,
“Excelsior! I’m gonna take all this negativity and use it as fuel and I’m gonna find a silver lining. That’s what I’m gonna do” (Russell, 2013). A silver lining is defined as having optimism or a positive outlook on a situation that might seem gloomy on the outside. Silver Linings Playbook is centered around Pat Solitono Jr, a middle-aged man who just spent eight months in a psychiatric hospital for beating the man whom his wife had an affair with. Pat leaves the hospital determined to accomplish his unrealistic goal of winning his wife back. His motto is “Excelsior” (Russell, 2013) and he uses this to fuel his actions. He believes every negative action can result in a positive action. He also believes he can rise up and be superior over his actions and others to win his wife back. Pat has Bipolar I disorder with manic episodes that can be seen played out in the movie. He himself states, “undiagnosed bipolar with mood swings and weird thinking brought on by stress” (Russell, 2013).
One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a movie that portrays a life story of a criminal named McMurphy who is sent to a mental institution because he believes that he himself is insane. While McMurphy is in the mental ward, he encounters other patients and changes their perception of the “real” world. Before McMurphy came to the mental ward, it was a place filled with strict rules and orders that patients had to follow; these rules were created by the head nurse, Nurse Ratched. However, once McMurphy was in the ward, everything, including the atmosphere, changed. He was the first patient to disobey Nurse Ratched. Unlike other patients who continuously obeyed Nurse Ratched, McMurphy and another patient named Charlie Cheswick decided to rebel
The Perks of a Wallflower, written by Stephen Chbosky, is a captivating novel that follows the transformation of a boy referred to as Charlie throughout his freshman year of high school. During the course of the book Charlie, his sister, and friends fall in and out of relationships. Each one of them is seeking the love and attention of another person, even without directly expressing their emotions. Love is a recurring theme in this book, even though it is shown in different ways.
There is an umbrella of different mental disabilities that are not shown on television. Common disorders are usually depression, anxiety, and less often, bipolar disorder (Bastién 12). Even more common, when disorders such as schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, and antisocial personality disorder are portrayed on television, they tend to give off a negative connotation on mental disorders. Not all people with mental disorders are “idiosyncratic serial killers” like Hannibal or “grotesquely destructive characters” like Elliot on Mr. Robot (Bastién 13). If society is not developing a stigma of those with mental
Many recent movies contain this same concept, one of which is The Dark Knight. The most famous villain in the Batman series is The Joker. The Joker is considered a mass-murderer, a psychopathic killer, and an unstable character. Like Norman in Psycho, “…the Joker has often been casually diagnosed with schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder,” showing that through how the villain is portrayed, the viewers classify them with a certain disorder without fully being aware of what the actual symptoms of the disorder is (John Goodwin and Izzat Tajjudin). As people are classifying mental illnesses with no background information other than what is given in the movie, stereotypes for mental disorders are formed. These stereotypes vilify those who are mentally ill because they have a predetermined outlook on each illness based on a movie. Because the movies have mentally ill villains, like the Joker, the viewers will automatically think that the mentally ill are very capable at turning into a psychopathic killer. Therefore, movies like the The Dark Knight cause the viewers to believe that those who have a mental disorder can easily become monstrous due to their state of mind. The movie does not give them a chance to prove it
In this paper the reader will be able to find a variety of different areas covered. A detailed summary of the movie 28 days directed by Betty Thomas in 2000 will start the paper. The diagnostic criteria of a psychiatric disease will be included along with rationales why the main character fits the diagnosis of disease. Included is the effectiveness or non-effectiveness of coping mechanisms. Pharmacological with classification and non-pharmacological treatments will be included in addition to discussion of ethical and legal issues. This paper will include whether it would be an acceptable fit for patients or families with the same diagnosis. Lastly, will be an overall conclusion of the information provided in the paper.
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
Nearly 1 out of 5 Americans suffer from some kind of personality or mood disorder (Mental Health by the Numbers, 2017), are you one of them? To identify that you need to understand what it is, a personality disorder are patterns of inflexible traits that disrupt social life or work and may distress that affected individual (Rathus, 2010). Personality disorders aren’t the only thing that affect us, because there are also mood disorders which are your general emotional state or mood is distorted or inconsistent with your circumstances and interferes with your ability to function. (Rathus, 2010) You may be extremely sad, and empty and then all of sudden you become really happy. To learn how to identify these disorders is through a movie. The film Mommie Dearest, directed by Frank Perry, is a story about Joan Crawford in the mid 1960’s who traumatized her daughter, Christina. So later in Christina’s life she wrote the book Mommie Dearest to
There is a great deal of social interaction that can be used for psychological analysis in the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower directed by Stephen Chbosky. This movie holds a strong focal point regarding mental illness, coming of age, and acceptance. (Halfon, Malkovich, Smith & Chbosky, 2012) Social psychology concepts from the textbook Social Psychology and Human Nature: Brief Version will be used to describe some of the actions and cognitions of the characters. (Baumeister & Bushman, 2014) The Perks of Being a Wallflower follows the life of main character Charlie, a high school freshman who tries to find acceptance and validation of his troubles by the help of his peers. Charlie, as well as his friends, suffer from mental illness in several different ways. This movie shows how the characters overcome the fears they hold and develop into stronger individuals. The three people that Charlie interact with the most are Sam, her Step brother Patrick, and Mary Elizabeth. (Halfon,
Erikson’s Stages of Development was seen most widely in Freaks and Geeks. Whenever there is a mix of freshmen age children in with older adolescents, there is always that awkward stage. When I was in the 9th grade, the school system I was in was still utilizing the junior high school and we would not enter high school until the ninth grade. The year that Freaks and Geeks was to take place, I myself was in the 9th grade, so I sympathized with the show somewhat. Sam and Rory from Gilmore Girls had trust from their mothers, where on the other hand, Danny from geeks and Lane, from Gilmore, dealt with mistrust because of how their mothers were. Danny’s mother expected him to drop everything and get what she needed, even if that meant missing school, and Lane’s mother did not allow her to
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.
There are two different kinds of disorders, personality disorders and psychological disorders. Psychological disorders are illnesses that an individual experiences as episodes. Personality disorders are enduring traits that are major components of the individual's personality (Rathus, 2010). No matter what kind of disorder a person may possess their lives are affected everyday by them, it takes over their body and consumes them as a person. Disorders are often misunderstood. You do not have the ability to make a split second decision and then continue life without that disorder, it will take lots of counseling. While we are not trained psychologist everyone can learn or identify disorders in popular movies or television shows. In the movie, Mommie Dearest, directed by Frank Perry, Joan Crawford possesses several of these disorders, including bipolar, borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.
The perks of being a wallflowers is about Charlie, a 15 year old freshman student that is about to start his high school year. He lives with his parents and older sister. Charlie has as an older brother too, but he lives away because he is attending college. As the movie starts goes, it is implied that when Charlie was a kid he was molested by his aunt, who later dies in a car accident on Christmas Eve, (which is also Charlie’s birthday). His family seems to have a strong bond, they each follow a role, and they support each other. During some scenes in the movie, Charlie seems to be having internalizing problems. As the movie progressed, it is revealed that Charlie had a friend that committed suicide, and this event made Charlie to feel sorrowful. When he enters high school, Charlie appears to be very concern of what others may think about him, as well as
The film Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is a psychological thriller that was created in 1960. The main theme of this film revolves around psychological illnesses. The film focuses on the main character, Norman Bates, and his psychological problems which include a split personality, voyeurism, sadism, guilt and self-punishment, and anal fixation. Throughout the movie you can see Bates exhibit these traits at different points; however, some traits are not as clearly evident as others. This film takes an in-depth look at how someone who possesses a mental illness might behave or think.
There are many types of diverse people classified under various categories. Some people have different types of personalities. They could be classified as extremely manipulative, others as impulsive, and some may not show anything on the outside and have wonderful social skills. These categories help in the understanding of humans. This study is called Psychology and there are many different subfields in this diverse study of the people around us. One subfield that is particularly interesting is personality psychology. Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and its variation between individuals.