Examples Of Mental Illnesses In Popular Media - Essay Example

Case formulation Precious is a sixteen-year old African American girl who is illiterate. She lives with her abusive biological mother Mary Johnston. She lives in Harlem which is a Ghetto in New York. The movie depicts that Precious is going through psychological issues. Precious lives in a neighbourhood that is categorized where most of the people are poor and there is ample existence of social deviance. Her mother is unemployed, and they have to live on the federal welfare program. Precious aspires to become a popular celebrity with light skin and a skinny body. Poverty and the struggle for survival indicate that she is experiencing lower social status. Her self-esteem and confidence are frequently challenged as she has no opportunity to attain her goals. Precious is abused by her own biological mother and is forced to cook and eat food which is unhealthy and is contributing to her issue of obesity. Her mother uses abusive words for her such as dummy bitch and she even hampers her self-esteem. Due to this she experiences rejection and disconnection with her peers. Precious is even a mother to two children who were born to her as a result of her being raped by her father and this act of her father is supported by her mother. Her father and mother are two main sources that cause physical and mental trauma to her. Precious has alienated herself from reality and lives in her own world where she is treated with care and respect. The movie depicts that she is quite frequently involved in her imagined world and in this world she is a complete opposite of who she is in the real world. She even escapes her house after being physically abused and raped and when she learns that her father is HIV positive. In order to cope with the reality she seeks comfort in her fantasy world or she over consumes food which is a cause of her obesity and shame in the society. Precious is also depicted as experiencing hallucinations in audio and visual form. She experiences hallucinations when she is oppressed by her own mom and the hallucination she experiences depicts that she desire to be loved. One of the examples of hallucination depicted within the movie is when Precious is sitting in the classroom and all walls and the blackboard around her start to move and she experiences nonexistence TV news, and Martin Luther King. Her self-image of her physical appearance is even distorted and is exactly the opposite of reality. Diagnosis Precious is experiencing Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and this is quite witness able as she continuously experiences flashbacks of her being sexually abused at the age of three and due to this she perceives that the events were repeating themselves. She does not even disclose these events to others as she is ashamed of these events. Precious’ social interactions suggest that she is even experiencing Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and this is because she has been sexually and physically abused by those who should provide her with love and care. Precious struggles with low self-esteem and she avoids social interactions and these are initial symptoms of SAD (APA, 2013). Precious hardly interacts with people and this is because she perceives that she will be negatively evaluated. DSM5 states that onset of SAD may lead to stressful or humiliating experience (for example, being bullied and vomiting during a public speech). She is continuously being bullied and she may even experience the same outcomes in other social settings. People with SAD also experience impairment of various cognitive abilities and this is why she has continuously remained in the sixth grade while others of her age have progressed. Precious has no control over her eating habits and her act of eating during times of stress depicts that she is suffering from an eating disorder. She fits the criteria of binge eating that has been identified under DSM5. According to the criteria, binge eaters consume a larger portion of meal as compared to people without eating disorders within a time span of two hours. This can be seen as she steals a bucket of 10 fried chickens and consumes it alone and that too in quite a small period. Precious might be suffering from psychotic disorders, as she experiences abnormal thinking and perceptions. For example: she perceives that things may fall from the sky, such as sofa, piano, or her mother. She also tells the social worker that she sees vampires and she belongs with them. She may even be schizophrenic because she experiences hallucinations and she is delusional and these are the symptoms of schizophrenia as per DSM5. But to classify her as a patient of schizophrenia it is essentially to know how long she has been experiencing the symptoms. Intervention The main psychological disorder experienced by Precious is PTSD because she has been depicted as showing symptoms including her avoidant attitude towards physical and sexual abuse and she even experiences arousal and heightened reactivity. Efficacy of behavioural exposure to traumatic-related material in the treatment of PTSD has established for a while. Specifically, it includes addressing cognitive processes that prolong a maladaptive view of traumatic events and prolonged exposure. Firstly, patients’ biases in thinking need to be eliminated. Secondly, “re-attribute” meanings assigned, and the traumatic events should be “decatastrophized”. Finally, anger management is needed (Oltmanns et al., 2012). In case of Precious, she might gradually start believing that the sexual abuse she experiences is not due to her fault because her mother keeps on telling her that it is her fault. When Precious talks about “love”, she does believe the existence of it because she finds “love beats her and love rapes her”. She sees the world as untrustworthy and dangerous places because of being abused. While treating her it is essential to change her perception regarding the world and she needs to realize that being abused is not her fault and the real world is not that unpleasant. It is essential that she realizes that she has t look after two kids and her friends love her. She can even be helped with writing tasks and memorabilia aimed at uncovering difficult feelings. This is because patients should be able to accept uncomfortable experiences and they will stop fearing those experiences. Prolonged exposure includes both imaginable and in vivo exposure techniques, and it has been tested to be effective and efficient in the treatment of sexual assault-related PTSD in several trials (Craighead et al., 2013). While using this treatment option, she will be asked to imagine re-experiencing the trauma in safe situation. This procedure will help Precious in decreasing the emotional intensity of the event of sexual abuses she had experienced. Also, by taking such experiences out, and listening to tape recording repeatedly and also contribute to a desensitizing reaction. Precious is obviously over-weighted, and it is quite highly possible that she is indulged in the act of binge eating. It is recommended that she should be provided with mindfulness training for her to target or change her eating habit and become healthier. According to Sandra Aamodt from TED Talks, girls who want to be slim and control their body weight should not opt for dieting as a means of reducing their weight and they should focus on the sensations of their body (Aamodt, 2013). This means that they should avoid food only when they feel hungry. Finally, I would encourage her to engage in some mutually positive and pleasurable activities with her peers. She can also attend group therapy with other girls who experience sexual abuses so that she realizes she is not alone. References Top of Form Bottom of Form Aamodt, S. (2013). Why dieting doesn't usually work. Ted.com. Retrieved 6 May 2015, from https://www.ted.com/talks/sandra_aamodt_why_dieting_doesn_t_usually_work American Psychiatric Association (APA).. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5®). Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Publishing. Craighead, W. E., Miklowitz, D. J., & Craighead, L. W. (2013). Psychopathology: History, diagnosis, and empirical foundations (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Oltsmanns, T.F., Martin, M.T., Neale, J.M., Davison, G.C. (2012). Case Studies in Abnormal Psychology (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Read More