One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Research Paper Example

For the purposes of this study, McMurphy code of behavior while in the correctional facility is closely investigated. McMurphy suffers from dissociative disorder. McMurphy as the main character displays a set of behaviors that strongly suggest that he is suffering from dissociative disorders. Primarily, dissociative disorders refer to irregular disruption of memory functions, personal identity, or personality. Dissociative disorder is a skewed psychological reaction in response to previous traumatic or distressful conditions.

Simply put, dissociative disorder can be said to be a defense mechanism against previous bad or traumatic experiences. It is claimed that most of the cases of dissociative disorders occur among persons who have gone through traumatic experiences. According to Butler as quoted by Sharhram and Stephen; the most important feature of the dissociative experience is absorption and in all dissociative experiences, pathological and non-pathological, self-reflective mechanisms are terminated and because of that, in any dissociative experience the sense of self is lost and the experience of body and world is changed--which is described as depersonalization and derealization (Sharhram and Stephen, 2011, p. 3) What happens is that the person experiences spasms of impartiality from self when a traumatic or a similar phenomenon.

It can be claimed that McMurphy’s dissociative disorder stemmed from the fact that he used to serve in military. Although the movie does not depict clearly the primary cause of McMurphy’s dissociative disorder, he must have developed the problem while serving in the Korean War. In the movie, McMurphy displays many symptoms of dissociative disorder albeit implicitly. Firstly, he is always in brawls with Nurse Ratched. For instance, he uses card games to win over all the cigarettes from the rest of the patients.

However, Nurse Ratched confiscates the cigarettes and Murphy gets on her by demanding that the hospital policies need reevaluation. At this point, Murphy is oblivious of his status as a mental patient and goes ahead to experience a moment of alienation from the reality (Tasman, Kay, Lieberman, First & Maj, 2011). Possibly, Nurse Ratched reminds him of a painful past in the military whereby he underwent a humiliating experience. In another spectacular scene, Murphy uses the hospital bus without the permission and knowledge of the hospital staff.

Interestingly, he carries his fellow patients and takes them to a fishing site whereby they use a fishing boat for deep-sea fishing. Arguably, the events at the fishing site clearly depict that indeed, Murphy is suffering from dissociative disorder. Notably, he tells the colleagues that they should not be afraid since they are fishermen and not mad as the nurses tell them in the hospital. At this moment, it can be posited that Murphy is experiencing a dissociative disorder since he is simply trying to change his personal identity and the identity of the colleagues in response to the harsh and unpleasant experience that he undergoes while in hospital.

In yet another scene, Murphy takes on Nurse Ratched after she warns Billy that she will tell his mother what they had done in the hospital. Murphy shows yet more severe symptoms of dissociative disorder by experiencing a moment of irregular mental functions (Frederick & McNeal, 1999; Tasman, Kay, Liebe