A movie that deals in some way with human development or psychological issues - Essay Example

She is not sure what is going to happen to her, or why, and she is subjected to a process of institutionalization. It turns out that her treatment involves talking therapy with a psychologist called Dr Wick. The film shows how Susanna responds to various female characters in different ways, starting with her suspicion of all staff and patients, and gradually leading to more acceptance and understanding of them. Dr Wicks is patient and kind, drawing out what Susanna has experienced in the past and helping her to find better ways of dealing with things.

The African American nurse on the ward thinks that Susanna is just another stupid teenage girl who is not really ill, but just exaggerating. The film shows how Susanna begins to identify with the other patients, seeing herself as one of them, and thus being mentally ill starts to appear to be “normal” to her. While she is in hospital Susanna meets a number of other patients, many of whom are considerably more ill than she is. One of the most seriously ill patients is Lisa (played by Angelina Jolie) and a friendship forms between Susanna and Lisa which results in the two young women getting into trouble and resisting the authoritarian orderlies and hospital authorities.

They run away and are brought back by the police. In the end Susanna is released from the hospital, but Lisa and the others remain. There are many developmental and psychological issues in this film but two of them are particularly important: peer influence in adolescence, and definitions of mental illness. The first is important because the main character in the film appears to be very impressed by Lisa, who is a sociopath, and bonds very quickly with most of the other patients. In standard psychology text books this shift from attachment to parents to close friendships with peers is a normal part of adolescence and an important stage in the development of a separate identity outside the immediate family circle.

(Baron and Kalsher, 2004) Dramatic gestures like Susanna’s aspirin overdose, and Daisy’s self-harming by cutting herself need not necessarily be a sign of serious mental illness, since there is an element of mimicry and attention-seeking in all adolescent behaviour. The film illustrates what behavioral theory would call modelling and reinforcement as the teenagers drift into patterns of behaviour that are common in their peer group, regardless of societal norms or parental example. (Heilbron and Prinstein, 2008) Susanna feels good when she resists the establishment, and she accords Lisa high status, which she wishes to share.

By taking the sociopath Lisa as a role model, Susanna risks sinking deeper into maladaptive patterns and worsening her own mental health. Working with the therapist, Susanna learns to unpackage these assumptions and begin thinking things out for herself. One of the interesting plot lines in the film is the fact that the viewer is never quite sure whether Susanna is ill or not, and this causes the viewer to reflect on the nature of mental illness and how it is defined. A simple application of the standard diagnosis aids such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1994) should in theory resolve this question, but in the case of Susanna’s diagnosis, namely borderline personality disorder, the definition appears to be so vague as to apply to almost anyone.

DSM IV criteria define borderline personality disorder in terms as “unstable self-image,”