Psychological Analysis Of The Movie Girl Interrupted

The movie I chose for this paper is titled Frankie & Alice. The main character, played by Halle Berry, was named Frankie. Frankie had a history of traumatic events that took place as she was growing up which resulted in her being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Frankie was unaware that she had any type of disorder until she was picked up by police and chose to receive treatment instead of going to jail. The paper includes a synopsis of the movie, along with an analysis of the symptoms Frankie’s character experienced to lead to her diagnosis. Also included are evidences about dissociative identity disorder and what may lead to its diagnoses in an individual. Prevalence of the diagnoses along with treatment selections for the diagnoses is also discussed.

The film Girl, Interrupted focused on an eighteen year old girl by the name Susanna that was admitted into a private mental hospital after being accused of a suicidal attempt. The movie follows Susanna on her journey in the institution as she encounters women with different admittance stories. The one who intrigues Susanna the most is Lisa. Lisa is thought to be a sociopath with the way she manipulates those around her to get her way. She is constantly in and out of the institution causing those around to fear, yet admire her. My main focus will be on Lisa and although it was not specified in the film just how old she is, she seemed to be around the same age group as Susanna. This means that, according to Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages, she is on stage five or six. Stage five happens during adolescence where ones primary task is their identity versus their own role in society whereas stage six happens in young adulthood and one faces intimacy versus isolation. The article incorporated gives more insight on how Erikson’s stages play hand in hand with one another and can potentially affect the mental state of someone if not successfully fulfilled. There is also a possibility that, with the ‘symptoms’ of a sociopath, Lisa could have had past problems during what Sigmund Freud considered the anal stage of her childhood.

The main character in “Girl, Interrupted,” Susanna Kaysen, played by Winona Ryder, was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. According to the DSM-IV-TR (2000) borderline personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability in relationships,

The movie Mean Girls shows examples of many social-psychological principals. Three of the major social-psychological principals depicted in Mean Girls are prejudice, discrimination, and conformity. According to Social Psychology and Human Nature textbook, written by Baumeister and Bushman, prejudice is a negative feeling toward an individual bases solely on his or her membership in a particular group. Discrimination is unequal treatment of different people based on the groups or categories to which they belong. Lastly, conformity is defined as getting along with the crowd.

Personality and how we behave have been of much interest to psychologists for a long time now and because of this there have been many theories and theorists that have been developed. Personality is defined as consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within and individual (Fritzley, 2012, p. 10). There are six main approaches to personality psychology they include: biological approach, humanistic approach, behaviorist approach, trait approach, psychoanalytic approach and cognitive approach. Each approach shines a little light onto why we behave the way we do and how our personalities are formed, the approaches contain many different theories from

Girl, Interrupted provides an in-depth look into Susanna Kaysen’s experience of living with a mental illness and staying in a mental hospital. Twenty-five years after she leaves McLean she learns of her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and discusses it in her memoir. Kaysen reads about her disorder from the DSM-III-R and views her diagnosis as:

A well-known girl with multiple personalities is one of many victims of this diagnosis. Many psychiatrist studied her behaviors, and learned from the documented history of her behaviors.

Connie’s parents, who choose to isolate themselves from their daughter, tremendously impact Connie's development. Throughout Connie’s journey she is often isolated. A large part of this is due to Connie's relationship with her mother. Whenever Connie

If you have not seen Dazed and Confused than you are really missing out. It is a great movie that relates from everything to High School to Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll. With an outstanding cast (from the past) it is a movie that everyone can relate to. Dazed and Confused reflects the lifestyle of kids that are entering high school for the first time, to seniors owning the school and being the "man" on compass. It portrays that freshman must watch their backs at all times and if you think you're as cool as the seniors, then you better watch out. There is a ritual that the seniors do to the freshman that have given so many people in reality a though of. With School being out for summer, in Dazed and Confused, it offers a great soundtrack from

In psychology personalities are developed through several theorist, but from these personalities can become skewed, causing a psychological disorder on a person's personality. These personality disorders can commonly be seen in about 31 million Americans, which densely equals out to 15% of our population population (Davis, n.d.). Psychological disorders are seen as behavior patterns or mental processes that creates a difficulty for oneself or a hinder on an individual's strength to endure certain situations that take place in life everyday. Disorders are primarily discovered through psychological testing, however, it is possible to identify them through watching psychological films or thrillers. In this case, the character Joan Crawford will be analyzed for her dominant personality disorders in the movie Mommie Dearest. While watching the movie Mommie Dearest the audience can easily recognize obsessive cleaning rituals, a fantasy over one’s own success, and dramatic changes of moods that swing up and down. The main character, Joan Crawford, displays dominant characteristics of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and a narcissistic personality disorder. As an audience we see that these disorders become very upsetting to those that are close to her, affecting her relationships with everyone and everything, specifically with her daughter Christina.

The film that I chose to do was the movie Mean Girls. This movie is filled with many funny characters and an amusing plot, but even though this movie has earned the crown of being the official “chick flick” it has a lot of psychological concepts that people really do not realize. However, when you really think about it, the movie has a lot to relate with when it comes to teenagers going into a new school because every teen that enters high school goes though the emotional and social stages of development. In this paper we will be looking at parts of the movie that focus on Cady and her stages of development as she goes through high school and deals with the Plastics, and then the Plastics themselves as well as certain aspects and things that revolve around them throughout the movie.

The movie Blow is the story of George Jung, the man who established the American cocaine market in the 1970s. The film starts with George as a child, showing what his childhood was like and what his relationship with his parents was like. As it progresses George grows up and moves to California. While there he become caught up in the marijuana scene and eventually starts selling it for money. George expands his market and eventually becomes very wealthy. But, George becomes too complacent and gets caught by the police and sentenced to prison. While there he meets and makes friends with Diego Delgado and learns about the drug Cocaine. Together they find a way to traffic it into the United States and again George becomes extremely wealthy.

The movie “Mean Girls”, featuring Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey, is a comedic film about a girl in high school who has to deal with all the problems, pressures, and choices of growing up in American society in comparison to that of being homeschooled in Africa. This motion picture was the perfect platform for showcasing various types of behavioral psychology. When Cady first moves from Africa to attend a public school she is a nice, innocent, respectful teenage girl. Her behavior quickly changes and these alterations can be explained through both the Freudian and Behaviorist perspectives.

The movie, Girl, Interrupted, displays Susanna Kaysen’s eighteen-month stay at a mental institute in the 1960s. This film was an adaptation of a book based on a true story of the main character and author Susanna Kaysen. Susanna was checked into Claymore, a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, after chasing a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka. At first, Susanna denies this blatant attempt at suicide and constantly struggles with uncertainty of her thoughts and emotions. Although Girl, Interrupted exhibits several mental disorders one of the most prevalent disorder of this film is Susanna’s Borderline Personality Disorder. This film depicts majority of the signs and symptoms of a person with Borderline Personality. As stated in the textbook, “the lives of persons with borderline personality are marked by instability. Their relationships are unstable, their behavior is unstable, their emotions are unstable, and even their images of themselves are unstable” (Larsen and Buss 593). Susanna’s romantic relationships are extremely unstable and she frequently engages in casual sex. She jumps from one guy to another in a matter of few weeks. One scene that establishes this the most is when her boyfriend at the time comes to visit her at Claymore and expresses his true feelings for her and she instantly withdraws. He asked her to go to Canada with him and she turns him down immediately. She also kisses Lisa who she befriends at the mental institute, displaying a switch of

Pretty Little Liars is a television show based on a set of novels that focuses on the lives of four teenage girls and the struggles that they face daily. After the murder of their cliques Queen Bee, Alison, each girl begins to get harassed and an anonymous bully threatens to expose all of their secrets. They are abused mentally after what seems like a never ending search to discover who the anonymous person that is harassing them is. The strong relationship that the girls maintain through their anxiety ridden high school career shows us that friendship can help to keep you strong. We will be looking specifically at Abnormal Behavior demonstrated throughout the girls high school days; Social identity theory demonstrated by