Reflection Paper: Girl, Interrupted

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.

1.The hidden girl was a story about a girl named Shyima Hall. She was born into a poor family and Shyima was the seventh child. A year later her family sold her into slavery in Egypt. While she was there she worked for most of the day and into the night waiting hand and foot for the rich family. Later when suspicion rose they moved to California and Shyima continued to take care of the family. She had to cook, clean and babysit the two younger boys. For example she had to sit on a bench while the two boys played on the playground. She was only a couple years older but she sat there because she didn’t want to get in trouble. Eventually a neighbor noticed and she was rescued by the Child Protection Services.

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.

In the short story “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid is told from the perspective of two different people. There is a bonding relationship that is happening between the two people in this short story. The mother seems to be the main character in this essay uses a very strict tone to her daughter. The daughter is being told about how to do things in her life the correct way. The daughter barely speaks during this essay, she is doing more analyzing than arguing with her mother. When the mother gives the daughter advise she was trying to give her words of wisdom. But, at the same time, some of the ideas the mother gave to her child was offensive like “slut”. The mother has different perspectives throughout this essay with a lot of different

Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.

Have you ever wished that someone had given you a guide on how live the right way? Jamaica Kincaid does just that in her short story, Girl. The narrative is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly in Antigua in the 1980’s. While the setting of the story is not expressly stated by the author in the narrative, the reader is able to understand the culture for which Girl was written.

Second impact of social isolation starts to begin from mental health. On the other way mentally ill members sometimes be socially isolated by the other members of the family which adversely impact the mental condition. Mental illness starts first with anxiety which deteriorates to depression and finally psychological disorder. Mentally ill patients do not want to mention their loneliness rather they express their problem in terms of anxiety and depression. It has been reported by Twenge, 2000 that social isolation from others can give rise to anxiety and stress which if persistent for long time can cause serious morbidity or mortality. In contrast it has also been evident that social affiliation or being with others can reduce or

This week’s reflection is on a book titled Girls Like Us and it is authored by Rachel Lloyd. The cover also says “fighting for a world where girls not for sale”. After reading that title I had a feeling this book was going to be about girls being prostituted at a young age and after reading prologue I sadly realized I was right in my prediction.

The 1991 movie My Girl tells the story of 11-year-old Vada Sultenfuss who, having lost her mother at birth , lives with her dementia-ridden grandmother and her job-oriented father in the funeral parlour that he owns and operates. The story follows Vada, an extreme hypochondriac who has many strange misconceptions about death, through a variety of life-changing experiences, including the engagement of her father and the devastating loss of her best friend, Thomas Jay. Through these experiences, the audience witnesses Vada’s social, emotional, and intellectual growth, as well as her changing views of death.

     Considering all the treatment methods used at Mclean Hospital, harsh physical treatments were rarely productive. Methods such as seclusion, ice-baths, Electro-shock therapy, and even the Hospitals atmosphere itself can make one wonder how anyone came out of there better than they went in. It seems odd that people teetering on the edge of sanity were subjected to such horrible treatments. Although such treatments sometimes worked, it in no way outweighs the horrible side

Entering the taboo world of mental illness, stigmatized as the crazy and psychotic by decades of

In both stories “Girl” and “Story of an hour” there is use of gender that describes a typically unfair direction of the role of a women, yet the use of gender is describe differently. The use of gender in the “Story of an hour” is mainly about how the wife of a husband who dies in the train crash is going to deal with life without her husband and if she will be able to handle it emotionally. While the story “Girl” deals with a mom that tells her daughter to be well mannered fit in socially with society. The role of women in both stories is to be well mannered and considerate with high standards of behavior. For instance, in the story the women tell the daughter “ on Sunday try to a walk like a lady” (123). A lady is what the mom wants her to become because she is afraid of her becoming unfit for society. Ladies are expected to be very polite and speak in good manners in order to fit the ideal women. In the “Story of an Hour” there is a specific way her family wants her to handle her husband death. The facts Mrs. Malland was told about the tragedy at a certain times makes me believe that writer wants us to believe that women have harder time dealing with her marriage life.

The book Girl, Interrupted is about a teenage girl Susanna Kaysen. At the age of 18 she voluntarily sent herself to the McLean hospital. In the beginning of the book the Susanna was talking to a psychiatrist she has been seeing for awhile, she has had a couple of suicide attempts so she started seeing that doctor. The doctor had recommended Susanna to go to McLean to help her be anti-depressive and help cure her borderline personality. Susanna ended up being in the hospital for 2 years.

In Brain on Fire, the readers gained insight on different the perspectives regarding mental illness from both Susannah Cahalan and the people in her life. From the author’s view, she considered the horror of individuals being misdiagnosed, due to the lack of knowledge the disease. In chapter 29, Dalmau’s Disease, Susannah questioned, “If it took so long for one of the best hospitals in the world to get to this step, how many other people were going untreated, diagnosed with a mental illness or condemned to a life in a nursing home or a psychiatric ward?” (p.151). Susannah mentioned how money and timing being factors contributing the fate of those misdiagnosed. With the lack of affordable treatments, children are often misdiagnosed with autism, as adults with schizophrenia (p.224).

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