Psychological disorder: According to the textbook, Psychology: Principles in Practices, they are behavioral patterns or mental processes that can cause personal suffering. With that being said, wouldn’t that mean that if a person had a psychological disorder, they would have a disturbance within them, or more importantly, their brain? A psychological disorder, by definition, are the behavior patterns or mental processes that cause serious personal suffering or interfere with a person’s day to day life or routine. In contrast, a personality disorder is characterized as patterns of inflexible traits that can cause a disturbance in the afflicted person’s personal life and may cause distress. To fully understand disorders, psychologists …show more content…
Borderline personality disorder is defined as the individual having severe instability in moods, relationships, and behavior. Some symptoms are alcohol or drug abuse, intense bouts of anger, depression, or sadness for an extended period of time, and self-injury. While it is unclear, many psychologists speculate that some causes of borderline personality disorder are genetics and environmental factors, along with childhood abuse or abandonment. (Psychology Today 2017). Joan Crawford grew up with her parents separated and three step-fathers throughout her adolescence, working small jobs until she made her break in the early 1920’s. Her strive to succeed may have been driven by these factors, which in turn could have caused her outbursts throughout the movie, Mommie Dearest because all the factors point to BPD. A scene that shows that Joan is affected by BPD is where Joan and Christina fight near the pool and Joan locked Christina into the pool house where Joan races with Christina in the pool to show off and proceeds to race Christina because she knows she will win. After Joan wins again, Christina gets an attitude with her and Joan instantly loses it, causing her to have a manic episode and lock Christina in the pool house to “teach her a lesson on
People who suffer from personality disorders usually have chronic interpersonal difficulties and problems with ones identity or sense of self . People with personality disorders can often cause as much difficulty in the lives of
Parenthood (1989) is a movie that deals with family life and the stages of human development. Gil Buckman is the father of three children Kevin, Taylor and Justin Buckman. Also, the husband of Karen Buckman. He works at a firm where he thinks he is on the track for a partnership. He coaches Kevin team in baseball and wants to be a better father than his dad. Also, he cares a lot about what other people think. In this movie Gil goes through a couple of stages dealing with his career, family, household and marriage.
“No wire hangers!” What would be a normal thing to find in an average persons home is not accepted in Joan Crawford’s home. This posses the question why in the movie Mommie Dearest does Mrs. Crawford have a dilemma with wire hangers in her closet? Why does she have so many mental complications in general? Although to the public, Joan seems like a striving successful actress she obviously has some underlying issues. She has developed her personality disorders her whole life, but how she got them is a mystery. Most people develop personality disorders from their parents or how they are raised. This is most likely the case with Joan Crawford, but no one really knows since she is diseased. Joan has four major personality disorders within the movie; Obsessive-compulsive, Bipolar, Borderline, and Narcissistic personality disorder.
Personality disorders: is when someone think, feels, sees, and receives things differently than others they can have extreme or unextreme feelings. This can be distressing to that person.
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.
There are two different kind of disorders, personality disorders and psychological disorders. Psychological disorders are illnesses that an individual experiences as episodes. Personality disorders are enduring traits that are major components of the individual's personality (Rathus, 2010). No matter what kind of disorder a person may possess their lives are affected everyday by them, it takes over their body and consumes them as a person. Disorders are often misunderstood. You do not have the ability to make a split second decisions and then continue life without that disorder, it will take lots of counseling. While we are not trained psychologist everyone can learn or identify disorders in popular movies or television shows. In the movie, Mommie Dearest, directed by Frank Perry, Joan Crawford possesses several of these disorders including bipolar, borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder and narcissistic.
“The sword cuts both ways,” Joan Crawford says while at the board meeting after her husband died. Joan Crawford, in the movie Mommie Dearest, shows her confident and no-funny-business type of personality that she is so well respected for, along with her acting career (Koontz & O’Neill, 1981). Also, she displays some good and bad aspects of her many personality disorders. Four of which are particularly prevalent in this movie: obsessive compulsive, borderline, bipolar, and narcissistic.
A diagnosis is the act of discovering or identifying the exact cause of an illness or a problem. A psychological problem is a mental behavior pattern that causes distress and disability. Symptoms are a change in your body or mind that shows that you are not healthy.
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
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious and complex mental disorder involving maladaptive behaviors and multiple symptoms. This disorder often occurs in the context of relationships and can have a chaotic effect not only on the individual with BPD but also on their loved ones. According to the NIMH, “borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness characterized by unstable moods, behavior, and relationship”.9 A primary character of BPD is behavioral and emotional dysregulation. These behaviors are difficult
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)
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