Mental Health In Psycho And Precious By Lee Daniels

Diagnosing an individual with a mental illness balances on a fine line between giving a life-long label and misdiagnosing. Mental illness is best viewed on a continuum allowing for a varying degree of severity. In the field, mental health professionals are faced with determining what signifies the appropriateness of diagnosing a mental illness. A professional’s judgment is impacted by their personal perceptions and observations, societies views and norms, and the patient’s history. The film, “How Mad Are You? A Search for Insanity” demonstrates the difficulties in distinguishing those who are mentally ill from those seen as healthy ( ). I will explore my reactions and thoughts regarding the participants’ experience as well as the mental health professionals. Additionally, I will share how this information is applicable to my future career in the field of social work.

Film portrayals of the mentally ill, have contributed to the stigma faced by people with these conditions. Films tend to create and reinforce the same certain stereotypes of the mentally ill. The film Silver Linings Playbook, is a refreshing departure from from this pattern. Exaggerated cinematic portrayals have largely bypassed mental illnesses , such as; Bipolar disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, etc. This film Silver LInings PLaybook, accurately depicts these common disorders among several characters in this film. The three main characters that blatantly show this depiction, are; Pat, Tiffany, and Pat’s best friend Danny Mcdaniels.

Nearly everyone in the world can be classified with some sort of mental or psychological disorder, whether it’s a big “problem” or just something small and rather unnoticable. Since film making became possible, people have been producing movies with a character that has some sort of psychological or mental disorder. Within the last 20 years, American Psycho, Shutter Island, and The Black Swan, have all had strong in their message and meaning in the mental disorder community. American Psycho and The Black Swan deal with borderline personality disorders in both of the main characters, while Shutter Island is more about post traumatic stress disorder and dissociative identity disorder. Movies dealing with characters with mental or psychological disorders are harder to portray, but if they can be portrayed correctly, they are likely to be some of the best movies you have ever seen.

The short documentary Crooked Beauty, directed by Ken Paul Rosenthal, narrates Jacks Ashley McNamara’s experience in a psychiatric ward and how her time in the facility shapes her new appreciation for her mental illness. One controversial issue has been trying to identify the true cause of mental illness. On the one hand, most people may think mental illness is simply a biological disorder that can be cured with a combination of medication and doctors demanding appropriate behavior until it sticks in the patient’s mind. On the other, McNamara contends that mental illness is a misconception with a patient’s oversensitivity, where it is harder for the patient to ignore certain events than “normal” people, and their doctor’s textbook knowledge. In McNamara’s mental institution, the psychiatrists simply trap her in a padded room and prescribe many different pills to suppress her mental illness instead of embracing her differences or showing her how to use those differences to her advantage. In attempt to prevent those who are mentally ill from feeling the same anger and frustration she felt, she demands a change in the line psychiatric treatment when she says:

The violence in Alfred Hitchcock’s film exposes underlying issues with gender. In addition to abuse of domestic violence and sexual assault, violence is posed as a measure to treat or deescalate hysteria. There is a tendency in Hitchcock pictures for people to use slapping and subdued in order to contain hysterical women. However, hysteria does not represent a legitimate disease inflicted upon these women, but an excuse to knock down women who do not conform to authority.

American Psycho is a movie adaptation directed by Marry Harron released in the year 2000 that was based off of the 1991 novel of the same name authored by Bret Easton Ellis. The movie focuses on the main character Patrick Bateman who is an investment banker in New York in the era of the early 1980’s. Patrick is a perfectionist whose life by day seemingly rotates between his picture-perfect job, his superficial relationship with his fiancée Evelyn, and his shallow interaction with his co-workers and peers. By night, Patrick is a textbook Psychopath and a serial killer.

Madness and insanity are two words that can be linked together, Insanity is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns, Billy Pilgrim displayed some of this abnormal behaviors which were mental, the readers see it in the things he does like he thinks he has the ability to go to see the future and also flashback into the past. In his novel Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses Billy Pilgrim’s actions, thoughts, and choices to demonstrate that Billy is insane in order to develop the idea that one’s hold on sanity can become altered following tragic events.

The movie Psycho was directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960. When Psycho was first released they implemented a rule that no one could come into the movie late, and I guess that was a thing that happened a lot back then. People were just like “I got a few minutes, let me go into this movie, I don’t care if it started.” But they were having none of that with Psycho. Once the movie started the doors were closed, no one was allowed in. In the previews they asked the audience to not divulge any of the secrets of the movie to their friends or family after they see it. And audiences obeyed, they didn’t go out and blabber about it like people do these days. You could not get away with that today, but audiences were cool back then. Because they didn’t let the audience in after the movie started, they didn’t allow critics to watch the movie ahead of time either. The critics had to go with the audiences on opening day to see the movie. They were not happy about that because they were being treated like peasants, like any other viewer. I guess they thought they were better than everybody else, as some critics actually gave them bad reviews basically because they didn’t get a special screening. Even before audiences watched the movie, their psychological needs start to be met as hype and suspense is built with the secrets people need to keep. The suspense is kept up throughout the movie from Marion’s get away and death, to the twist at the end.

Now, even though I loved this movie it is hard to watch it without become irritated about how mental illness is portrayed. This is a comedy about a patient and psychiatrist relationship. Bob is the main character who suffers from many psychological disorders including OCD, dependent personality disorder, and many phobias. In the movie Bob says “I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder with agoraphobia, hypochondria, multiple phobias, as well as a very dependent personality” when meeting with his psychiatrist, Leo. After Bob and Leo meet, Bob admires

Mental illness is heavily stigmatized in mainstream media sources, such as articles, books and movies. The character who is suffering from a mental disorder, which is stigmatized is often exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. The stigmatization of mental disorders is unfair to those who have mental disorders. The viewers of media are viewing those suffering from the disorders as “psychotic” or “crazy”, which is inaccurate and unjust to those affected. The media representation of the disorder provides vague and inaccurate causes and treatments. In the movie series “The Dark Knight Rises” and television series “Dexter”, the characters Joker and Dexter are afflicted with the mental disorder antisocial personality disorder; in which it creates

While “movies, newspapers, magazines, television shows, books, radio programs, and advertisements have all been vehicles for communicating the experience of…mental illness” it usually “[tends] to be a misrepresentation of the experience” (Corrigan 201). This has a major negative impact on people suffering from mental illnesses because they feel sentiments of “societal scorn and discrimination” which ultimately “leads to diminished self-esteem, fear of pursuing one’s goals, and loss of social opportunities” (Corrigan 201). There seems to be a revival in the world of movies and television of depicting forms of exploring the minds of serial killers which started in the 60s with the creation of the Horror film genre. There is almost a strange fascination amongst audiences to know more about the minds of murderers and those who are too sick to see the wrong they are doing. Films depicting mental health have a great impact on the lives of those suffering from mental illness and also the perceptions of those who do not suffer from mental illness. The mostly negative stigma surrounding those who suffer from mental disorders gives them a bad reputation that impacts most aspects of their lives.

Understanding mental illness for the average person can be challenge or even unattainable. Unknown aspects from each individual illness grasps differing urges that are unrelated to the majority of people. The film industry, however, is used as a productive machine of creating empathetic relationships between its audience and the people being portray in the film. A combination of the film industry and the implementation of characters struggling with mental illness delivers a provoking message to an audience of people willing to learn the situations of all people. The movie A Beautiful Mind manages to fulfill the dramatic effects of a film and the realities within an individual suffering through mental illness.

individuals psychotic break. There is no right or wrong way to approach this film, however, an

Throughout this semester we had been discussing the portrayals of mentally ill patients via mainstream media, and how their impressions on the world through the eyes of popular culture sort of filter our vision amongst them. In successfully doing so, we then shifted toward another objective: the portrayals of gender stereotypes in both typical and atypical ways, primarily as a result of popular culture and mainstream media depictions. Specifically, we’ll be comparing and contrasting between The Incredibles and Wonder Woman before arriving at the core of what the reputation for both gender stereotypical and atypical roles hold today.

In most cases, people who are portrayed with mental illnesses are commonly exhibited as being violent and/or aggressive, but are also frequently depicted as eccentrics, seductresses (in the case of women), self-obsessives, objects for scientific observation, simpletons and/or failures. One or more of these such labels can reasonably be applied to the characters examined in both The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Holy City... As such, a skewed, and ultimately rather unsavoury, picture of mental illness is often presented to the public. There is plenty of evidence that these pervasive negative portrayals can have harmful effects, particularly effects they might incur through perpetuating the stigma associated with mental illness as well as potentially reducing the likelihood that those with mental illness will seek out the appropriate help. In April 2005, a psychological review put together by Jane Pirkis, R Warwick Blood, Catherine Francis and Kerry McCallum examined the effect of fictional portrayals of mental illness. They made reference to studies that have employed surveys and focus groups to examine the sources of community attitudes towards mental illness, having found that the media in general are perceived as the root of such