The Silver Linings Playbook, Pat Peoples

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is “a mental condition that can affect a person who has had a very shocking or difficult experience and that is usually characterized by depression, anxiety, etc.” (Merriam-Webster’s, n.d.) Post-traumatic stress disorder can occur after seeing a dangerous event such as war, hurricanes, car accidents, death of a loved one, and violent crimes. It can affect a victim mind, body, and the people around them. While some mental disorders are genetic, this disorder come from the things that people encounter in life. This paper will discuss the risk factor involved with post-traumatic stress disorder as well as treatments that will help overcome it and future research and approaches to treat this psychiatric illness.

Silver Linings Playbook is shot through Pat’s perspective in the present as he navigates his life after he is released from a psychiatric rehab facility. Russell is able to tell the story of how Pat arrived at the point he is at through flashbacks triggered by his wedding song and through visits with his court appointed psychiatrist. The storyline bounces around from different aspects of Pat’s life; problems at home with his parents, his running back to Nikki and away from his new life, and dancing with Tiffany. The audience is whirled around following it all, as if they too are a part of the obsessive craziness that is overwhelming and raw in some moments and relaxed and comical in others. In these ways, the mental illness aspect of the film that has completely shaken up Pat’s life, is woven through for the audience to understand, but is still not a glaring idea that is hard for people to grasp or relate to.

However, the argument that exposure to traumatic event can always result in mental health problems has become controversial because it can stigmatize those who do not believe they have been affected in an adverse manner. Fortunately, only a small percentage of people experience severe enough lose or trauma reactions to meet the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), and most people appear to fully recover from any adverse effect within a relatively short period of time, and to successfully overcome potentially traumatic events with little or no disruption in their normal ability to function (Shalev, 2002). Therefore, it is important to note that “the emergence of interest in the concept of resilience comes at the peak of success of the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), serving as a reminder that

It was not until the 1980’s that the diagnosis of PTSD as we know it today came to be. However, throughout history people have recognized that exposure to combat situations can have profound negative impact on the mind s and bodies of individuals in these situations. But there are other catastrophic events that can have such profound impact on people resulting in PTSD…

To elaborate, one of the provided examples is of Herbert Richardson. His stressful service in Vietnam, combined with a difficult childhood and a struggle with addiction, ensured that he suffered once he returned home. Stevenson explains that “he had nightmares, suffered disabling headaches, and sometimes ran out of his house screaming ‘Incoming!’ He married and had children, but his post-traumatic stress disorder continued to undermine his ability to manage his behavior” (Stevenson 74). Post-traumatic stress disorder is an extremely serious

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is known as a mental illness that is suffered commonly by many soldiers after the traumatizing events of war. Within the troubling illness, not only does it affect the mindset of the person dealing with the disorder, it also affects the family and friends of the person suffering. In the book “A Separate Peace” written by John Knowles, a character known as Elwin Lepellier suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Silver linings playbook is written by Matthew Quick, an author Camden New Jersey. This book is a humorous fiction and has a release date of September 2nd, 2008. The book is about a mentally unstable adult who was recently sent home to live with his parents after being in a mental health facility. Pat, the man character, loses everything, his job, his wife, and his family. He is sent there after beating his wives lover almost to death. Although his wife is cheating on him he still will do anything he can to stay with her. Pat loses his job while he is away because this is where both his wife and her lover work. The school where they all work at does not want any of these problems to come into the work place. His father will no longer talk to him because he is ashamed of him, he is disappointed of what he has done. Pat is not the only one with a mental health problem in his family, his father has many outbreaks mostly related to football. He is obsessed with football and when the team he does not want to win wins, he has a habit of breaking things. Although Pat and his family have gone thorough had times there is always a silver lining to be found. That is what Matthew Quick wants to prove with his theme of a silver lining can be found in

The film I chose to analyze is Silver Linings Playbook because I was interested in the story when I read the synopsis of the movie. I thought that this would be a simple movie where the main characters would help each other because they had something in common. Reading the synopsis, I also thought that Pat would be back together with his wife, but at the end he found another love. In the next paragraphs I will show my knowledge on what I have learned this semester. On my analysis of Silver Linings, I will give examples that has the concept of language, nonverbal communication, listening, emotions, conflict, and close relationships.

In the story, Clinical Histories: From Soldier’s heart to PSTD, the author laid his foundation for understanding the reasons behind PSTD stress after combat engagement in veterans. PSTD is generally considered to be a mental illness. Combat stress is defined as the “expected and predicable emotional, intellectual, physical, and/or behavioral reactions of service member who have been exposed to stressful events in war or military operation other than war”. The American military community realized that engaging in combat could have physiological effects on individual. After World War 1, physiologist concluded that individuals reacted in wide ranges of ways during wartime, and it was their predisposition that resulted in neuropsychiatric disorder,

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is extremely common among certain individuals such as veterans, rape, and natural disaster victims. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is life altering, once diagnosed, the most efficient way is look for a solution to cope with it. Known as PTSD for short, “is a mental disability that occurs when experiencing or witnessing a life threatening events such as military events, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, serious accidents or physical/sexual abuse in adult or childhood.”(1) The symptoms of PTSD include reliving a person’s traumatic experience, avoiding situations or people that remind the individual of said experience, emotionally detached, hyperarousal, and a sense of self guilt. In the novel, The Kite Runner, there is a child by the name of Sohrab, who was the son of the late Hassan’s son. Sohrab was sexually abused by one of the antagonists of the book named Assef which caused Sohrab’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sohrab faces a largely misunderstood trauma: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) just like most of the children who suffered from sexual and physical abuse trauma.

Pat the main character of the movie has bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disorder is also known as Manic Depressive Disorder. Bipolar Disorder consists of mood swings from the lows of depression to the highs of mania. These mood swings may happen as often as a few times a day to a few times a year. The exact cause of Bipolar Disorder is still unknown. Since the exact cause of Bipolar Disorder is unknown it is unknown what parts of the brain is exactly affected by Bipolar Disorder. Current research indicates that structural abnormalities of the amygdala, basal ganglia, and the prefrontal cortex are the parts of the brain that are affected by Bipolar Disorder.

In Martha Stout’s essay “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday”, she discusses how a person who has suffered a traumatic experience is most likely to dissociate their individual self from that situation and block it from their mind completely. This form of a solution allows the person to forget the experience and not feel the pain. In “Immune to Reality” Daniel Gilbert describes how every human being contains a psychological immune system, which works to shield us from horrible experiences that threaten our happiness. When experiencing a traumatic event, the psychological immune system responds by “cooking up the facts”, meaning taking the facts of the situation and turning the negative aspects of it into positive views. At first

Silver Linings Playbook is a story about two love birds who find each other. In psychological terms, Pat is suffering from bipolar, while Tiffany has been struggling with depression due to the death of her husband.The film, moreover,

In Judith Herman’s book, Trauma and Recovery, she discusses her research and work with trauma survivors. In her book, she writes that, “traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life” (Herman 24). She explores the idea that trauma is as individual as it is common, with reactions and the journey to the post-traumatic self similar despite differences in events. In the case of Barbara Gordon, while the event may vary, her physical and mental trauma can be compared to America’s fear of its forfeiture of power to terror and the loss of the towers after September 11, 2001. Trauma is about more than just the physical ramifications; when the physical aspect is fixed, Barbara’s legs and the building of the 1 World Trade Center, the mental and emotional trauma still remain.

The 2012 movie “Silver Linings Playbook” is a drama-romantic comedy written and directed by David O. Russell and among others, stars Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert De Niro. The film received eight academy award nominations, was nominated in all four Oscar categories, and does a fairly accurate job of portraying an individual with a bipolar disorder, who was just released into the care of his parents, and his segue back into his family and social life after eight months of clinical treatment in a mental health facility.