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A fictional clinical assessment of Marilyn Monroe...

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Abnormal Psychology 001 This document is entirely fictional, that the person named in the evaluation was never actually evaluated, and that the report author is not qualified to conduct psychological evaluations.

Marilyn Monroe - Norma Jean Mortenson Psychological Evaluation

It was a warm summer morning, and my patient had draped herself dramatically over the sofa, seeming to perform even now. She was dressed in the highest end designers, in a comfortable and light fabric that seems to wrap her in a cloud of light. “Miss Mortenson, why are we here today?” I asked her. It had been ten minutes since she came through the door, her silent since then. “Oh please,” she said, “Call me Marilyn. Everyone does now, it’s rather quite catchy. That’s why they had me change my name anyhow.” Her voice had a tone of sadness and resignment, accustomed to this life she had now. “Okay then Marilyn, why don't we just start with the beginning, with your childhood? If that’s alright with you.” As I spoke she looked over, and a shadow of sadness passed over her face. She began to speak, her popular breathy voice sounds especially vulnerable now. “I never knew my father. My ma was always sick, tucked away into those awful mental institutions. But I’m not sick like her, I’m not. That’s how I was able to become a star! Her friends took me in, they raised me up pretty strict but they were real religious, no fault of their own. Grace took good care of me, she would teach me how to make myself up and do up my

Abnormal Psychology 001 hair. She was always talking about the big movie stars and how she wished for that sort of glamorous life. It was these times, where we would sit and become beautiful that I could feel some happiness. I could forget about my ma. The world around me then was kind of grim. I had to learn to pretend in order to...I don't know...block the grimness. The whole world seemed sort of closed to me… But I could just put on a different face and pretend to be someone else.”

She paused here. I could see it all in her mind, the sadness of growing up and how she even then had started to push herself down and put forward a different face. I waited for her to continue speaking.

“It was only a couple of years of this. After Grace got married, she sent me to homes. She tried to visit me often, but she couldn’t stop what happened to me. I was only eleven you know, but I suppose men have always wanted me.” Marilyn closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. “Well anyways a few years later I married my first husband, Dougherty. Grace arranged the marriage for me, I never had a choice. There's not much to say about it. At least it got me out of the foster homes. Our marriage was plain, and he was shipped off to fight in the war. I got a job working in a parachute factory. When I look back, this is where I got my first job, that this kicked off my career. Photographers decided to document us girls, working away in the factories. He called me a “photographer’s dream,” so I guess really that was my start. I kept getting modeling jobs, I even got a small part in a film. I was somewhat scared, but fear is stupid, and so are regrets.

Abnormal Psychology 001 Dougherty soon returned, and it was so very boring. Our marriage didn't make me sad, but it didn't make me happy either. We hardly spoke to each other. We weren’t angry, we just had nothing to say. He didn’t like that I posed for photos. Then came my first divorce.” Here she again stopped, and drank some water.

I was beginning to see the notes here of what was happening. Marilyn was feeling disconnected from her husband, who didn’t support her work. They had no feelings for each other, but she could feel some sort of want from the photographers who showered her in such praise. She knew that she was appealing and wanted, but her horrors from being raped in the foster home must be following her.

“Ms. Monroe, do you think that idolizing the movie stars and also what happened when you were 11 pushed you towards modeling, using your looks to get money and fame?” She laughed, not a happy laugh but one tinged with sadness and a sense of irony. “Well of course it did! But that doesn’t make it wrong. There’s not a lot of chances to get famous while reading and being clever, so I thought to give them what they want. That’s why they like the blonde hair you know, men prefer blondes right?” “Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, esspecially when one is tired, hurt, and bewildered. But it’s what they want from me, and who’s to say that I don’t enjoy it? Besides, Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. So it doesn’t really matter either way, if I enjoy it or not, does it?”

Abnormal Psychology 001 “I get really anxious about performing now. I’m in so many big movies and pictures, but I just get so nervous it makes me sick. That’s why I’m so late everywhere you know, it’s not that I don’t care I just get very nervous about being on the screen or in front of people. I often cry on set, or feel slow and dumb. Not a great trait for a star I know, but they still love me. Dr. Ralph Greenson gives me pills to help me sleep, and pills to calm my nerves. They make me so groggy, but I need them I couldn’t imagine not taking them. I take more than he says, but I think I would know that I need them. People are always making me up and pulling me around, Everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like a sort of chunk out of you. I don't think they realize it, but it's like "grrrr do this, grrrr do that…” But you do want to stay intact...intact and on two feet. I just don’t think they know it feels like they’re the ones ripping you apart. My other husbands, they never understood. They got jealous with how other men look at me or with my career, so they always ended. I want love, but I don’t think it’s for me. I feel stronger if the people around me on the set love me, care for me, and hold good thoughts for me. It creates an aura of love, and I believe I can give a better performance. But the producers just get so upset with me. I know I belong to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else. It’s just who I am, I’m the peoples. I have never been my own self. Even my appearance and name, it's not me. I don't recognize my own self most of the time.”

Abnormal Psychology 001 Marilyn fell silent, having said what she felt necessary. “So what do you think?” she asked, looking over. “Am I crazy like my ma was? I think I might be at times, going crazy that is.” “Well Ms. Monroe, I have some thoughts. Social Anxiety, for one, and possibly even Borderline Personality. For your social anxiety, you said that you often get terrified about performing, but also said you feel that you are performing for most of every day. This marked fear and anxiety about this is a key feature, as is the fact that this is recurrent and significant distress. It is even out of proportion perhaps, but that is hard to determine for you. You are under scrutinization and the public eye every day, but you are also an amazing actress, and so the constant fear and crying on set even on set makes this different. You are anxious about this to the point of being sick and hours late. To fix this, we can have frequent meetings and use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, we can pick out and negate your automatic negative thoughts. This therapy will also help with your Borderline Personality. Your history of relationships, sexual and not, as well as your multiple failed marriages is not secret. These are usually extreme and unstable relationships, going through devaluation and idealization, but none with someone who could actually care for you in a wholesome and healthy way. I think that you know that, Ms. Monroe. You have very unstable sense of self, lost and floating in the creation of Marilyn Monroe that Hollywood made out of Norma Mortenson. You have changed your entire self, and even said you don’t feel as though you belong to yourself and cannot recognize yourself. Next, your impulsiveness. While having a lot of sex isn’t bad, but paired with your other instability and drug reliance and abuse, these traits are typical of Borderline Personality.

Abnormal Psychology 001 Finally, the combination of anxiety dissociation and affective instability from stress solidify this personality disorder with you. Now, if you return Marilyn, we can start to use this therapy to help you improve and be happier, and healthier” I looked over at her to see her staring out the window. “Well that’s it,” she sighed. “I am like her. I suppose I’ll see you soon.” With that, she stood up and left. I never saw Marilyn Monroe again. The date of our meeting was August 4th, and I heard about her death the next day in the paper.

Sources: https://makaylaheisler.wordpress.com/2014/06/08/a-psychological-analysis-of-marilyn-monroe/ http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/grahn/monroe.htm https://www.biography.com/people/marilyn-monroe-9412123 Abnormal Psychology, 17th Edition....