Girl Interrupted Mental Illness

The film “Girl, Interrupted” is a true story adapted from the original memoir by Susanna Kaysen. Set in the 1960s, it relates her experiences during her stay in a mental institution after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder following a suicide attempt. Many films include characters with a mental illness; the actors who play these characters have the immense challenge of staying true to the illness they portray.

Girl, Interrupted discusses extremely abstract ideas, so it is necessary to include narratives, figurative language, and comparisons for readers to fully appreciate the work. Kaysen utilizes a metaphor when describing insanity. She writes, “Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast… The predominant quality of the slow form is viscosity. Experience is thick… In contrast to viscosity’s cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own…” (75). This comparison of insanity to velocity and viscosity allows readers to visualize the abstract topic much more easily. It is difficult for many people to understand insanity because the mind is so difficult to comprehend. In order for Kaysen to attempt to explain such an abstract concept to her audience, she must utilize these types of comparisons as well as her own

stays focused on reality and her idea of perception as well as the friendships she acquires in her two year stay at McLean Hospital and her recovery period once she is released.

Kathryn Merteuil, the primary antagonist in Cruel Intentions, is the master at manipulating both men and women. She is the most popular girl at her school and bases the entirety of her self-worth on her perception that everyone either wants her or wants to be her. In order to maintain her appearance, Kathryn binges and purges and has a heavy cocaine addiction. Although well liked and popular, Kathryn holds no stable relationships and is easily upset and irritated when things do not go her way. Although this film’s focus is not Kathryn’s mental health diagnosis, Kathryn’s actions and unstable emotions are arguably that of a patient with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Susanna is greatly impacted by her inability to maintain social relationships. Her relationship with Toby made her feel

As a result of Susannah’s paranoia-induced delusions, her mother and stepfather, Allen, decide to admit Susannah to New York University’s Langone Medical Center for answers. Before being formally admitted, however, Susannah convulsed on the floor of the hospital and suffered a seizure. Susannah’s “lost month of madness” ensues from this point forward. Furthermore, her condition seemingly worsens as she is moved to the epilepsy unit of the hospital, notorious for low hopes of recovery among patients.

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.

Another example would be how Lisa’s parents were too busy with their life to notice their daughter’s plea for help. Yet another example would be how the teachers and guidance tried to look around the problem. Today, the same social problems are still faced. The book’s them dealt with mental illness and treating it.

Some I’ve seen…”. Showing Lisa right at that exact sentence, we get the idea of her being healthier and eventually got out of the place, but we also learned that Susanna never really killed her Lisa, the unamplified part of her. She just reinforce it, pushing it down, making it unknown to the world, like she was “cured”. It’s not perfect, but it’s a very important part of Susanna that creates her personality, making Susanna what she is today, and it helps bringing her writings

The film, “Girl Interrupted” directed by James Mangold focuses on the lives of many women who have a psychological disorder. I will focus specifically on Susanna Kaysen, an 18 year old, who struggles with mental health issues during and after high school. Susanna voluntarily admits herself to psychiatric ward after an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide by taking a bottle of vodka with aspirin. Her decision was influenced by a short consultation with a family acquainted psychiatrist, because she is informed that she will only stay a few weeks. Afterall, she was institutionalized for a year and a half. Psychotherapy will attempt to diagnose and treat the disorder or symptoms she experiences, through analyzing psychological theory(s), that best understand her thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. The biosocial theory effectively supports Susanna’s diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), while Behavior Analytic Theory could be applied in the treatment of Susanna’s symptoms and correcting her behavior.

The characters of Lisa and The Devil, appear to exist in some kind of purgatory. Some seem to exist in different times to others, yet still interrelate with them. All we have as an anchor is his ensured direction, which makes for a mysteriously uneasy vibe while viewing the film. Anything is possible. Indeed, this concept is further emphasized in a deeply disturbing scene in which Max drugs Lisa and begins to have intercourse with her wilted body as she lies in the bed with the skeletal remains of Elena, in a moment that dwells like a visual sonnet.

She later becomes depressed and homeless, and ends up in the hospital because she was coughing up blood. Although having to give up her freedoms, she returns home where her parents accept her. Her

Psychoanalysts’ understand human personality through behaviors by looking into experiences, including the origin of emotions, thoughts and behaviors. An influential psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud stated that “Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it, we cannot dispense with palliative measures. There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it” (Freud 728). Many of the characters in the movie Girl, Interrupted behave in all sorts of ways, that range from being unreasonable, frightened, happy, sad, or disturbed due to their varieties of behaviors. They all have different ailments that have affected the way they act, respond, and interpret situations. The main charter Susanna Kaysen's personality is explored through various reasons behind the advantages and disadvantages in personality disorders, traits, and humanism. In accordance with personality theories, the movie Girl,

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.

Not to mention, early in the morning Old Nick had approached her asking if she could help him with his sick dog but it was all a trick to get her into his the truck. While blindfolded she was forced to take something so she would fall asleep and when she woke up she was inside “room”. Shocked about her new environment she would cry days on end and be so scared to fall asleep incase he ever came back. In fact, in the book she