Mommie Dearest : Movie Analysis

The movie Parenthood (1989) revolves around the psychological stresses that are faced by families. From the name of the movie, the main theme is coined, involving the issues that are faced by parents while raising up their children. The movie is centered in the family of Gil and Karen, and their extended family. Set in a middle-class white society, the anxieties and pains of raising children are presented in the movie. Gil Buckman is a parent and businessman. His wife, Karen, comes out as a nearly perfect parent, and always stays at home. Gil and Karen have three children. The oldest child is Kevin, a nine-year old boy with emotional problems. The emotional problems that are experienced by Kevin form a very significant aspect of the movie,

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a pattern of recurring obsessions and compulsions that are severe enough to be time consuming and interfere with a person’s daily functioning. They must cause marked distress (such as pain or physical harm to the person) or significant impairment. Usually, they take more than

Obsessive-compulsive disorder was the disorder most evident within Joan’s personality, throughout, the movie. This disorder demands perfection, and that’s in everything. There are often ridiculous rules within the household, and often times the home will be perfectly clean. For example, in the movie Joan blows a gasket on her daughter Christina, because, Joan finds a wire hanger in her closet. This shouldn’t be a humongous situation, but it is, and the end result Christina gets beaten with wire hangers. Another scene from the movie shows Joan eating raw steak, and trying to make Christina eat it as well. Christina thinks the raw steak is disgusting,

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.

In the movie Joan Crawford shows multiple examples of being borderline, which is a disorder in characterized by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships. (Mayo Clinic 2017). This can be a hard disorder to find because

In my opinion, the most predominate disorder within Joan Crawford is Histrionic disorder. This personality can be defined as a mental health condition that causes a person to be excessively dramatic and emotional. People with this disorder tend to seek out constant attention from others and are easily influenced by others. Although the exact cause of this disorder is unknown it may stem from childhood events or genetics. Joan Crawford shows symptoms of Histrionic disorder frequently throughout the movie, the first scene being when she throws her daughter Christina an extravagant birthday party. This scenario shows Joan taking away attention from her daughter in any way she can as she soaks up the light of the photographers. Another example would be when Joan filled in for her daughters position in a soup opera while she was sick without her permission. In these scenes, Joan is pushing her daughter aside to fill in the spotlight.

Imagine your own family member constantly manipulating you into thinking you were going to be forever young. Now imagine that person telling every individual that you cannot care for yourself nor will ever get better. To be completely honest, that is a scary thought, not having any control over your own body and believing your caretaker that you are mentally incapacitate to care for yourself. The documentary I chose to watch and write about is Mommy Dead & Dearest, this documentary was released 11 March 2017 and the director is Erin Lee Carr. In this documentary, we see Dee Dee and Gypsy’s narrative who brings Munchausen Syndrome by proxy — a form of child abuse that involves a caretaker making up an illness for

Many people believe that psychological disorders are unique, however they are becoming a more common, in fact around 26.2 percent of people suffer from a psychological disorder in a given year. Psychological disorders are behavior patterns or mental processes that cause serious personal problems and interferes with daily life. Disorder types expand beyond only psychological, many other disorders fall under the category of being personality disorders, which is defined by, patterns of uncompromising traits that affect and disrupt one’s ability in everyday life. When looking at disorders it is important to be able to dysgenic the difference between psychological and personality disorders. Psychological disorders are illnesses a person undergoes as an “episode,” however, personality disorders constant traits that play an important role when developing a person’s personality. One way to identify these types of disorders is through movies. For example, the film Mommie Dearest, directed by Frank Perry is a story told from the perspective of Joan Crawford’s adoptive daughter, Christina. Joan Crawford expresses many disorders shown throughout the movie, while Christina displays how these experiences affect her life. Throughout the movie Joan Crawford demonstrates psychological and personality disorders of, bipolar, obsessive compulsive disorder, narcissistic, and histrionic.

One of the more obvious disorders that were shown was Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder which is, one’s inflexibility and fixation on rules, procedure, and orderliness, the main difference between OCD and OCPD is they do not perform constant meaningless rituals. Some symptoms are anxiety about time, cleanliness, and worry about money which causes them to work more than needed. What causes OCPD is not entirely clear but psychologist believe it is a combination of genetics and environment. One of the scenes that display OCPD was when Joan and her maids were cleaning her house and one of her maids forgot to move a pot when she waxed the floor which caused a ring of dirt and Joan said, “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the dirt.” then her current boyfriend showed up and she forgot

The following is an overview about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), one of the most difficult psychiatric illness to be understood. The way of doing certain behaviors, thoughts or routines repeatedly is the essential condition of a person with OCD. In general, it is known and described by someone who is extremely perfectionist and meticulous. Unfortunately, they do realize those habits and be able to stop doing it. Common behaviors are such as checking locks, doors, stove bottoms, and lights, hand washing, counting things, or having recurrent intrusive thoughts of hurting oneself or somebody else.

One personality disorder Joan Crawford demonstrated was bipolar. This disorder can be defined as periods of reckless behavior and hyperactivity that can change at any given second (Rathus, 2010). There are several occasions throughout the movie that show Joan suffering through this disorder, for example one moment she would be a cheerful, smiling mom and at a drop of a hat, it would change for the worst making her become an angry and aggressive toward her child Christina. This can be seen when Joan is kissing her sweet daughter Christina goodnight, and then looks through the closet where she finds a dress hung by a wire hanger. Joan’s behavior quickly becomes elevated, ripping all of the clothes and hangers out of the closet, yelling at Christina, which then leads Joan to beat her daughter with the hanger. Another example is in the scene

Psychological disorders are stated to be abnormalities of the mind, known as mental disorders (Klasco, 2011). Abnormalities of the mind cause persistent behaviors that affect an individual’s daily function and life (Klasco, 2011). The different types of psychological disorders include mood disorders, personality disorders, anxiety disorders, and eating disorders (Klasco, 2011). The causes of these disorders are unknown, but factors that contribute to these disorders include childhood experiences, chemical imbalances in the brain, illnesses, heredity, stress, and prenatal exposures (Klasco, 2011). Psychological disorders can be serious and can be life-threatening

A psychological disorder, also known as a mental disorder, is a pattern of behavioral or psychological symptoms that impact multiple life areas and create distress for the person experiencing these symptoms. These symptoms are characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual 's cognitive, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental process underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities. Approximately 26 percent of American adults over the age of 18 suffer from some diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. (Cherry)

Obsessive compulsion disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder described by irrational thoughts and fears (obsessions) that lead you to do repetitive tasks (compulsions) (Obsessive Compulsion Disorder, 2013). When a person has obsessive-compulsive disorder, they may realize that their obsessions aren't accurate, and they may try to overlook them but that only increases their suffering and worry. Eventually, you feel driven to perform compulsive acts to ease your stressful feelings. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is often driven by a reason, cause, or fear for example, a fear of germs. To calm the feeling of this fear, a person may compulsively wash their hands until they're sore and chapped. Despite their efforts, thoughts of obsessive-compulsive behavior keep coming back. This leads to more ritualistic behavior and a brutal cycle of obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD is the fourth most common mental disorder, and is diagnosed nearly as often as asthma and diabetes (Who We Are, 2012). In the United States, one in 50 adults suffers from OCD. Obsessive compulsive disorder affects children, adolescents, and adults. About one third to one half of adults with OCD report a childhood onset of the disorder, they felt these anxieties but were not diagnosed or felt no need to be diagnosed until the compulsions over whelmed them (Who We Are, 2012). The phrase obsessive compulsive has been used to describe excessively meticulous, perfectionistic, absorbed, or otherwise fixated person. While

Personality disorders are very defined and recognized in today’s society. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association provides common language and standards classifying mental disorders. The DSM is used by many people in varying disciplines in the USA as well as many other countries. In times past, people with disorders may have been outcast from a community or even persecuted. However, in our current culture the pendulum has swung in the other direction. It almost seems that there is a trend to explain all behavior by a mental disorder. This results in needing to disprove that certain people are not displaying a disorder, rather acting within a normal human emotion or