What About Bob Movie - Essay Example

Lisa Ware Abnormal Psychology 204 Dr. Nevada Winrow What About Bob Psychiatric Diagnostic On the surface, Bob Wiley appears to be average in terms of his place in the demographics of his community. He is middle-aged, Caucasian, and male. He is, from what we can tell, self-employed out of his home (perhaps as a result of one of his particular phobias such as the agoraphobia he shows in the film). Although Bob openly contemplates the possibility of having a cardiac arrest from his heart beating so fast, or his bladder exploding from not being able to find a bathroom, Bob does not have any known medical conditions, which could also come as a result of his Factitious Disorder in which he feigns illness or medical problems as an attention-seeking device. Bob Wiley from the film What About Bob? displays several distinct features of psychological disorders described and identified in the DSM-IV Manual. Among the mental illnesses Bob exhibits Agoraphobia, Germophobia, Panic Attacks, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Histrionic Personality Disorder, and Factitious Disorder. These disorders all manifest themselves separately and, according to the Axes of the DSM-IV, completely or partially fulfill the criteria of the previously mentioned disorders. In the beginning of the film, Bob describes his disorder as a fear of germs, and a nervous feeling whenever he leaves the confines of his home. He describes his compulsive need to fake illness to hide his disorders, and that he often “blacks out” or “loses consciousness”. He exhibits germophobia when interacting with public telephones, along with a general agoraphobia shown when he stepped out of his home and fell into a crouched position as a large truck goes by. These phobias are compounded by a general anxiety that extends to all other of his activities. The agoraphobia is perhaps the clearest of Bob’s diagnosable problems. Bob avoids public and confined situations (which may hint at an element of claustrophobia), such as the elevator, which is an experience he endures as he screams at the top of his lungs. Whether it is the elevator or the bus, Bob pushes through it saying “Baby steps to…” and following the Doctor’s advice. Bob exhibits pathological nervousness when in situations where getting away can be difficult or where getting help may be difficult if his anxiety occurs. He states this quite clearly when he tells Dr. Marvin about his fear of his heart exploding, or about his fear that he will not find a bathroom in time and his bladder will explode. Nevertheless, Bob’s agoraphobia does not inhibit him from going out in public. Even though he avoids confining public places, such as the elevator in Dr. Marvin’s building, his histrionic personality disorder makes him excessively emotional and attention-seeking. He is lively, enthusiastic, and dramatic, and even fakes Tourette’s syndrome either for comic appeal or to let out some deep-seated feelings. Even though he endures these kinds of circumstances with high levels of distress, he still does not completely avoid them. Bob’s germophobia is rather apparent throughout the story, especially in the big city where the film starts out. He uses tissues to avoid touching objects that are frequently touched, and sprayed a public telephone with disinfectant. He takes extraordinary measures to avoid situations in which he is in direct contact with germs. For instance, when a garbage truck rolls past him as he steps out of his house, he bends down to avoid it. All of these measures to avoid contact with germs interfere with his daily life and social interaction. For instance, on the bus that he sees as riddled with germs he asks to be punched and knocked out for the journey to the country. Bob’s phobias are compounded in their effects on his daily life by the presence of panic attacks. When Bob is faced with a situation in which he is forced to deal with his fears, he describes the feelings he gets, which are all characteristic symptoms of panic attacks. In Dr. Marvin’s office, he describes his symptoms as trembling, chest pain, dizziness, tingling, being short of breath, nausea, sweating, and hyperventilation. When faced with his phobic situations, Bob says that he is afraid that his heart is going to explode, which may be a fear based on heart palpitations or chest pain which appear in most cases of panic attacks. The panic attacks may indicate an underlying Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Throughout the film, Bon exhibits ongoing anxiety and nervousness concerning many situations he encounters. For instance, when Bob is unable to make contact with people because of his fear of germs and public places. On that point, there is his trouble leaving his home and going on the bus. He expresses a view of himself that is contingent upon his condition, such as when he is talking to Dr. Marvin’s daughter and applies the negative characteristics she assigns to herself to himself. He has trouble containing his fear and often expresses it through unusual means of interpersonal communication, like screaming on the stairs when he could not go on the elevator. Bob only partially displays the symptoms of GAD, that symptom being restlessness, but could very well show other symptoms such as irritability, fatigue, and sleep disturbance. Lastly, Bob exhibits some symptoms of factitious disorder: a condition in which a person acts as though he or she has an illness but actually is faking or exaggerating symptoms. Bob, in numerous places, fakes symptoms and admits that he is faking symptoms. Such as the cardiac arrest and the Tourette’s syndrome that he fakes in his initial interview with Dr. Marvin. In addition, the motivation behind Bob’s symptom-faking is not economic or external such as with the case of the child heating the thermometer with the toaster when he does not want to go to school. Bob is motivated to fake symptoms by his attention-seeking behavior, and his histrionic personality disorder. Bob displays the characteristics of all of these disorders and could be correctly diagnosed with any one of them. However, some of these disorders clearly outweigh some of the others, such as when Bob will overcome some of his fears to see his doctor: a case in which his histrionic personality disorder overrides his fear of germs and public places. These fears also diminish throughout the film, as he gains more and more attention in the smaller town. This may lead one to ascribe all of Bob’s disorders and symptoms to an attention-seeking personality disorder like histrionic personality disorder. Under this diagnosis, we might say all of his phobias and panic attacks may themselves be attention-seeking behaviors. For example, on the bus, his fear of germs is clearly affecting him, and he tells other passengers to knock him out for the trip. Treatments for histrionic personality disorder may correct all of Bob’s psychological disorders. Bob’s behavior during the course of the film, in which he tracks Dr. Marvin down and steals all of the attention away from his psychiatrist on their vacation, is to be taken as a microcosm of Bob’s life as a whole. This presupposition is supported by the nervous breakdown that Dr. Carswell Fendsterwald seems to be having as he is referring Bob to Dr. Marvin, and the list of psychiatrists that Bob lists near the end of the film that he has seen prior to Dr. Marvin. All of this is suggestive of long-term psychological issues that have never been fully dealt with by psychiatrists because of Bob’s characteristically overbearing behavior. From this diagnosis, the most appropriate treatment for Bob would correct the root disorder, the histrionic personality disorder, and not try to correct his more general mental problems. Read More