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Analysis Of Girl Interrupted

Decent Essays

Kayla Southworth
Professor Leany
Psy 441-1001
December 8th, 2017
Lisa Rowe from Girl Interrupted In the movie Girl, Interrupted the plot surrounds a period in the life of Susanna Kaysen played by Winona Ryder who was institutionalized at the Claymore mental hospital in the 1960s. In the movie, the main character Susanna is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and undergoes treatment to which at the end of the movie she is released. It is at this hospital that Susanna encounters many other patients of which she shares many experiences with. One of these patients was the longtime resident and popular amongst all the other patients Lisa Rowe played by Angelina Jolie whom Susanna became close with and would mid-movie escape the hospital with to only return on her own and find that Lisa would be back a few days later. Lisa, while being the protagonist of the movie, was very charismatic in her own way and based on her behavior and revelation in the movie is diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, particularly a sociopath in the movie. The reason Lisa would be diagnosed with the anti-social personality disorder is she displays all the symptoms and characteristics of it. The DSM V defines antisocial personality disorder as “a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of other people and self” (Hoermann, Zupanick, and Dombeck, 2013). The symptoms of this consists of manipulation to one’s own benefit or pleasure, impulsivity, hostility (physically and/or verbally), a disregard for safety of self or others, inability for intimate relationships, irresponsibility, and lack of remorse (Edens, Kelley, Lilienfeld, Skeem, and Douglas, 2015). Personality disorders are put into clusters and antisocial personality disorder is a cluster B, which is noted to be one of the hardest of all the disorders to treat besides the Border line personality disorder that is grouped in here (Barlow and Durand, 2015. pg 453,460,463-464). In the case of Lisa Rowe she displays the characteristics of antisocial personality disorder as she is manipulative to the benefit of herself, is very impulsive, and displays hostility in her harsh dialogue towards other patients that in one scene of the movie also shows the other symptom

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