General Psychology DSM-IV-TR Project Case Study - Essay Example

One of the characteristics that make Esther stand out from acceptable social traits is her unconventionality and unwillingness to conform to social expectations. She is also fixated on morbid thoughts. For example, Esther could not help her mind get away from the cadavers, the pickled fetuses and the execution of the Rosenbergs (after their links to the Soviet Union was exposed). These cognitive and behavioral traits are not pathological in themselves. The author does not make clear, if Esther Greenwood’s manifest patterns of thought are something deliberate and conscious or plainly arising out of her childhood conditioning.

Her parents and school teachers expect her to be cheerful and amiable with her fellow pupils; but Esther’s pre-occupation with death, suffering and the apparent folly she sees in all human endeavors makes her aloof and distant. Esther Greenwood’s rebellion against social norms affects her perceptions on intimacy as well. For instance, while the society expects her to remain a virgin and maintain a respectable lifestyle in order to make herself eligible for marriage, she wanted to explore her sexuality as it occurs naturally.

Consequently, she begins an affair, which is completely based on experiencing sexual pleasure and none whatsoever on feelings of love and intimacy. Here, we begin to see symptoms of mental disturbance that find mention in the DSM-IV-TR scale. For instance, Esther’s apparent lack of self-control to remain a virgin till marriage could be broadly classified as a symptom of underlying “impulse-control disorder”. But DSM-IV-TR diagnosis is not purely a technical one, but requires the psychiatrist to make subjective decisions as well.

At the time in which the novel is set (early decades of the twentieth century) American society was still largely conservative. It