Personality Theories/ Girl Interrupted , Diagnosis, Freud, Allport PDF

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Personality Theory Assignment, Psychological Analyst of Girl Interrupted and the five-factor model. The story of Susan Kayson....

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2 Pe r s o na l i t yThe o r y “Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train was moving while sitting still? Maybe, I was just crazy.” (Susan Kayson, 1999). Girl, Interrupted This psychological drama film had an all-star lineup, based on the accounts from Susan Kayson memoir published in 1993, about her eighteen months stay in the 60’s at a mental hospital. Susan Kayson had a non- complete suicide attempt that involved a bottle of aspirin and vodka. She was not willing to admit that she was trying to commit suicide, rather to downplay the act by saying she had a headache that she wanted to go away. In the beginning of the film, short clips were presented piecing together her story line of events that ultimately lead up to her stay Claymore Institution. While she lay in the hospital, she looks up and sees a man staring at her through the glass of the window. The older gentleman, at first, could be seen as her father, but then eventually is uncovered that he is Professor Gilcrest, a much older man she had an affair with. She also had a brief sexual encounter with a guy she met at a party. This relevance of her sexual activity comes to play later in diagnosis that was considered sexual promiscuous. Her upbring was in a middle-class family were her mother focused on being a socialite among her circle, and her mother real focus is what people think with her social statues. Not much was portrayed about her father. As a resent graduate with her only aspiration of being a writer, most of her focus was on dying and depression. In her therapy session after her suicide attempt, Dr. Crumble convinced her to commit herself to the Claymore Institution. Then the story begins.

3 Diagnosis Before Susan Kayson commitment to the Claymore Institution, the introduction of the movie, Susan expression of life is depicted in a very dispirited view with a fascination of dying. Her disclaim of the suicide attempt and trying to normalize the situation, are common behaviors of bipolar and borderline personality disorder. Destructive behavior tendencies lead to less healthy behaviors that follow with aggression and engaging in risky action. Susan was unaware of her diagnosis until she snuck into Dr. Potts’s office and read her own file. Her diagnosis, borderline personality disorder. The borderline personality disorder behavior impacts self-image causing problems functioning in everyday life from difficulty in managing behavior and emotions, having patterns of unhealthy relationships. There are nine traits of this disorder, fear of abandonment, unstable relationships, shifting self-image, self-destructive behaviors, self-harm, extreme emotional swings, chronic feelings of emptiness, explosive anger, and out of touch with reality. Borderline personality is rarely diagnosed on it own and I believe her co-occurring disorder was depression. Freud Freuds “death instinct (Thanatos)’ has been described in ‘Beyond the pleasure of principle’ proposing “the goal of life is death”. People channel their death instinct outward through aggression that arises from death instinct. The result is self-harm or suicide. People who experience traumatic events, reenact that event by channeling that experience through the unconscious desire to die. Susan’s experience with having an affair with a much older man was not detailed in the movie but leaving one to speculate on the situation. The affair seemed to take place when Susan was a minor, and not having the maturity level to understand consequences of actions can lead to

4 trauma. There was a scene in the movie that showed Professor Gilcrest sneaking up to her room and asking to have relations with her that caused her to get agitate, this suggest to me that his advances may not have all been warranted in the past and shows signs of classic predator taking advantage of a young girl. This could lead to feelings of shame of being sexually exploited and ultimately lead to suicidal tendencies and negative feelings of self- worth. Allport Susan story was depicted in the 60’s, the height of many social and society movements changing the expectations of social normalcy. In a therapy session, Susan had stated that she did not want to turn out like her mom when the therapist suggest that borderline personality could be inherited. I think Susan was referring to her mother’s lifestyle and not mental status. In the era of the 60’s, the change in woman liberty was a huge social movement for the end of expectations of the common housewife and woman becoming more liberal and independent. I believe Susan was growing into a more modern woman that wanted to live independent of the society structure of what a woman is expected to be. If the theoretical approach from Allport was used, a different interpretation of Susan’s diagnosis might have changed. Allport’s stability of traits theorizes, traits of sociability, impulsiveness, meticulousness, truthfulness, and deceit are stable over time and situation. Traits are not referring to single instance of behavior by implying disposition to respond in an identifying manner. With traits representing structures with a person and are not accepting of observers, it becomes a product on genetic predisposition and experience. This could clarify the societal view on Susan’s untraditional choices she wants to make for her future that are deemed unreasonable by the influence of social status portrayed by her mother and the expectations of a woman’s status in society.

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The five- factor model. In psychology the five-factor model divides five traits of a person’s individual personality understood as patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior through an individual’s life span. Using the five-factor model and psychoanalytic therapy by observing how the unconscious mind influences thoughts and behaviors and how events shape the individual and contributed to their actions was therapeutic techniques used for Susan’s treatment. The in-depth talk therapy helps Susan to release her thoughts and feelings that were buried deep inside her, or in her unconscious state, and bringing them to awareness, or consciousness. This is also a representation of Freuds theory of the unconscious. When unconscious feeling and emotions are brought to the surface and the person is aware and can examine the actions that could be attributed to the unconscious wishes, they learn to deal actions in a rational fashion. Conclusion “Declared healthy and sent back into the world. My final diagnosis: a recovered borderline. What that means I still don’t know. Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is. Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you, or me, amplified.” (Susan Kayson 1999). In the last scene Susan states that she has been deemed recovered by Freud’s definition of mental health, declared health, recovered borderline personality.

6 References Wick Douglas, Ryder Winona, Konrad Cathy. Mangold James. (December 8, 1999). Girl, Interrupted. [Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.] Kaysen Susan, (1993). Girl, Interrupted. Turtle Bay books. Stone Alan A., (June 1, 2000) Split Personality, Arts in Society. Retrieved from: bostonreview.net/film/alan-stone-split-personality Cherry Kendra, (2020). Freud’s theories of life and death. Very Well Minded. Retrieved from: https://www.verywellmind.com/life-and-death-instincts-2795847#:~:text=Death%20Instincts %20(Thanatos),arises%20from%20the%20death%20instinc J.D. Safran, E. Gardner-Schuster, in Encyclopedia of Mental Health (Second Edition), 2016...