Analysis of Shutter Island Essay

Psychological disorders are very real and present in many people we come in contact with daily, however, are very rarely talked about. Learning about these disorders can help us to understand others and ourselves better by telling us why we do and think the things we do. One effective way that we can observe and learn about psychological disorders is through movies. “Mommie Dearest” was directed by Frank Perry. It is centered around the actress Joan Crawford, who suffered from various psychological disorders. Joan’s daughter, Christina, wrote a book about her mother and her many problems and it was later turned into a movie. It is very effective to use movie analysis as a way of learning, especially in psychology, because it provides a great way to observe without distractions. When you’re looking at disorders, it’s difficult to find a person who has many of these disorders and will allow you to observe them. Psychological disorders can be split into two major groups, personality disorders and mood disorders. Personality disorders are patterns of traits that can get in the way of your social or work life and may interrupt the individual’s normal lifestyle. Mood disorders are inconsistent and unreliable changes in mood by the affected individual. (Rathus, 1998). With all of this being said, it brings me to my point that I will be talking about for the rest of this essay. Joan Crawford demonstrates the personality disorders of histrionic, narcissism, and OCPD. When it comes to mood disorders, Joan demonstrates bipolar disorder.

The film Shutter Island depicts the story of a World War 2 veteran Andrew Laeddis and his experience with mental illness, specifically portraying the memory phenomena of repressed and recovered memories also known as dissociative amnesia and dissociative fugue (Kikuchi et.al. 2010). The illness is triggered by a psychologically traumatic event, which included discovering his wife had murdered his three children, and in response, he killing his wife (Kikuchi et.al. 2010). Additionally, the portrayal exhibits many of the criteria for a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Friedman et.al. 1994). The DSM-V now classifies dissociative symptoms as an additional subcategory of PTSD diagnosis, however, the film concentrates

Why does Holden continuously judge people based on their physical appearance? Could this be a projection of his insecurities or a reflection of his mental health?

“In our media-intensive culture it is not difficult to find differing opinions… The difficulty lies in deciding which opinion to agree with and which ‘experts’ seem the most credible” (Espejo 11). The perceptions of one age group in society of another age group are built upon assumptions that are made through what is visible. However, rarely is anyone willing to understand the reason behind someone’s actions. Sibling rivalry, the death of a loved one, moving to a new school, competition among peers, and the reputation adolescents have today often end up giving a misperception of society to teens and of teens to society, thus damaging the relationships between society, as illustrated by J.D. Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye.

The goal of this course is to provide students with an overview of topics related to abnormal psychology. The primary emphasis of this course will be on classification of psychopathology and the symptoms associated with different syndromes.

Based on the stories my parents told me, I’m very excited to be a teenager in 2016. When they were teenagers in the early 90’s, they didn’t have internet, cell phone, or social media. Although many things were different during that time, they always seem to remind me of the old phrase, “The more things change, the more things stay the same.” I recently read the article, “What Our Words Tells Us”,by David Brooks. Brooks believes the atomization and demoralization of our society means our society has no connection with past generations and that today’s society lacks morals. I believe today’s generation is just as morally conscious as the generations before.

The ethics of youth has been a re-occurring question by critics, two of which are David Brooks and Danielle Tumminio. Brooks believes that today’s youth “has not been given the resources- by schools, institutions, and families- to cultivate their moral institutions”. While Danielle debates that today’s youth “knows what it means to live a good life” and later stating that students “want to know how to better our world”.

Fullerton, Ann., Geenen, Sarah., Powers, Laurie., and Quest, A. Del. 2012. "Voices of Youth in

Television has a very big impact on how people act. The movie, The Merchants of Cool, proved that people can be persuaded by what they see. Many advertisements are aimed to target the teenage market, since they are the driving force of sales and audiences. People know that teens will do whatever it takes to fit in with their friends. In order for one to appreciate the effects of marketing on teens, one could consider The Merchants of Cool as an example of the sociological factors at play, and the effects of such marketing on school culture and teen values.

Youth culture

This is a film analysis of Shutter Island. Shutter Island is a 2010 film directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, this film is 138 minutes of psychological thrills and horror. Shutter Island covers the field of psychopathology. More specifically, it covers psychotic disorders, dissociative disorders, and treatment. Shutter Island is set in 1954 on Shutter Island, Massachusetts at the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane.

Today’s society is completely controlled by technology, the news, and social media. So much of what people learn is from the news. It is so easy for someone to go on their computer in the morning, pull up CNN, and read about what is going on in the world. The only problem with this is that CNN can put whatever they desire on their website and portray to their readers their bias. The most impressionable of these people is the youth of the world. Younger children are the most impressionable people on the planet, and with social media they are being exposed to the opinions of the world at such a young age. Social media makes information available at the touch of your fingertips. All it takes is logging on to a computer and searching whatever you want to read about. Also, celebrities act ridiculously and become a bad influence on young kids who looked up to them. In Plato’s Apology an example of the corruption of youth it discussed. Socrates corrupts the youth by telling them his unorthodox ideas that differ from the rest of the society, and in response the other members of the society claim that Socrates is poisoning the minds of the youth. The corruption of youth in Plato’s Apology is drastically different than how the youth are corrupted today, and through social media, the news, and how celebrities act the youth of today become more corrupted.

Adolescence is a time where an individual’s sense of identity starts to emerge and a majority of their social norms are perceived. In this day and age, adolescents live in a world heavily submerged around media, which plays an important and habitual part of an adolescents' life. In a national survey conducted in 2009, adolescents on average spend more than 7.5 hours using some sort of media a day (Rideout, Foehr, Roberts, 2010). With this unprecedented access to the world, individuals are learning and connecting with many different people and ideas through the media (Brown & Bobkowsi, 2011). With different forms of media playing an influential part in an adolescents’ life, their perceived social norms may be seriously influenced.

Throughout the movie, The Notebook, there were many different aspects that corresponded with the material learned throughout the semester. There were times were you were able to pin point why each problem was faced based on different character backgrounds. As began to watch the movie, you start to understand the culture aspects of each individual by the way they talk and present themselves, which caused many situations to arise. Also, these many situations arise throughout the movie that affected the outcome of decisions made: biological, psychological, and social/environment. However, diversity played a magnificent role from the beginning to the end. So, therefore, throughout this paper you will have a better understanding of the analysis of this film, which should provide information about the movie.

Most of the problems facing today’s youth are not restricted to any one ethnic or religious group, but affect young people generally. Most discussions on youth have focussed on issues such as drug abuse, crime, violence, sexuality and poverty. In addition to these, today’s youth are afflicted by new challenges.