The movie Silver Lining’s Playbook by David O. Russel has two main characters, Patrick Soliton Jr. and Tiffany Maxwell, along with a few other characters that tend to struggle with psychological disorders. Patrick Solitano, who was a former high school professor, was returning home from eight months at a mental institution after beating up his wife’s “lover”. Pat Jr. had caught his wife in the shower with another man (history professor) while his wedding song was playing in the background, therefore became instantly violent. Patrick was diagnosed with a Bipolar Disorder at the hospital before going into the institution, but he also had some maniac episodes going on as well. He ended up moving in with his parents, Patrick, Sr. and Dolores in Philadelphia, PA, where he wanted to rebuild his life and try to reunite with his wife, Nikki, who also has a restraining order against him. Tiffany, a tragically widowed and clinically depressed women comes into contact with Pat and connects emotionally with him. She lost her husband due to a sudden car accident that had killed him. She offers to be a middleman for him and his wife, but he has to give up watching football and go to a dance competition with her. In the meantime, Patrick kept on searching for his silver lining to try to overcome his difficulties. Later on in the film, Pat finds out that Tiffany’s sister, Veronica, is friends with Nikki, so Pat believes then he can begin communicating with Nikki through Tiffany. Meanwhile, Tiffany begins to text relative strangers to have sex with them when she gets in a depressive mood, and Pat tends to deal with his maniac episodes by going for jogs and doing other little things. It ends with the two becoming a couple because they both have realized the love they had for each other was so special and Pat’s father, Patrizio, Sr., opens up his own restaurant with his bet winnings (money) from the Eagle’s football games.
In this movie, many characters such as the Patrizio, Sr., Dolores, Patrick Jr., and Tiffany Maxwell all have different types of psychological disorders; some are easily shown through their actions, while some of them aren’t. Starting with Patrizio, Sr., who is the father of Pat Jr., is out of work and has a deep obsession with sports betting especially with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Throughout the film, Patrick Sr.’s actions are shown as having an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, an extremely impairing and prevalent anxiety disorder in which intrusive thoughts are produced by uneasiness, apprehension, or fear that are accompanied by repetitive behaviors, which are aimed to reduce these feelings. Being the character of this disorder, Pat Sr. tends to engage in irrational thinking marked by his superstition and unrealistic evaluations of different types of events. He has many difficulties and disagreements with his wife and son especially because of the way that he is and was raised. Patrick Sr.’s compulsions, an urgent need to take actions and/or to perform certain repetitive behaviors in order to relieve distress caused by obsessions, are shown repeatedly throughout the film. In the first scene of the movie, he tends to get aggravated and angry at his wife, Dolores, because he believes that she has moved all of the remotes in the house and that they are not at the right “angle”. As the movie goes on, he continues to get angry at Pat Jr. for using one of his envelopes that he keeps numbered for the bookmaking money. Pat Sr. also gets very agitated when his tapes of the Eagle’s games are out of chronological order because he likes to keep everything organized. Patrick Jr.’s father also is called “The Explosion Guy” because of his aggressive anger towards challenging situations he puts himself through. The major part of this movie is the father being banned from the Eagles stadium for beating up a bunch of guys who were disagreeing with them. Another diagnosis for the father is that he has a form of an Anxiety Disorder. The Generalized Anxiety Disorder, the excessive uncontrollable and often irrational worry, that is, apprehensive expectation about events or activities, is the perfect match for Pat Sr. This is because of his superstitions and anger explosions throughout the movie. Those who have this type of disorder need to have control in their situations, therefore they occasionally create these “superstitions” that way they can believe that they have control in their minds. Patrick Sr. explains this very well because he thinks he can actually control the outcomes of these football games. Anger, difficulty concentrating and feeling agitated are common symptoms associated with this type of disorder, which all happens to be a “product” of frustration when the anxiety hits. Pat Sr. is very superstitious of his football games, but he believes that his son is a “good luck charm” for the Eagles and constantly urges Pat Jr. to do things, especially with Tiffany, in order for the Eagles to win. A scene from the movie is stated when Pat Jr. goes to an Eagles game, the same day as the dance competition, and his dad bets everything he has on this game because he believes the Pat Jr. will bring his luck (Russell).
Dolores, the mother of Pat Jr., doesn’t really have a set mental illness in this story, but she is an enabler, a person that makes something possible and very passive. She always supports Patrick Jr. no matter what and even after what he had done to Nikki’s lover. Dolores just wants to best for Patrick but he has to learn to listen. From her actions throughout the movie, she tends to struggle with some personal and internal problems such as an Anxiety Disorder, repeated episodes of intense, excessive and persistent anxiety which interfere with daily activities, are difficult to control, and are out of proportion to the situation. Dolores fear of anxiety, a feeling of alarm that occurs automatically without conscious thought in the presence of an immediate threat, tends to rumble throughout her body, but she just doesn’t show it, especially towards her husband when he gets angry. The fear in this case, dissipates quickly once the threat is removed. Dolores doesn’t want her family to fight, so she feels that by her saying things at some points in the film will resolve the situation and make it better for them. Dolores plays a role of encouraging her son, Pat Jr., to follow the doctor’s orders, to take his medication and help him stay out of trouble, which really has an impact on him one day when he wakes up and realizes he wants to change.
Patrick Jr., the son of Pat Sr. and Dolores, was a Philadelphia native who at the beginning of the movie is taken out from a residential treatment facility by his mother. We have learned that he has been in a mental institution for 8 months, following a violent episode in which he attacked the man he caught cheating with his wife. We were informed that he tends to struggle with a diagnosis of Bipolar 1 Disorder, which has at least one manic episode and a major depressive episode and are given certain hints that while this may have been his first “major” manic episode, he also struggles with emotional and behavioral problems. The causes of bipolar disorder are genetic factors, environmental factors, and neurochemical factors, which are clearly laid out in this film. The “Manic” episode is an elevated mood and goal oriented activity or energy, involving persistently elevated, expansive and irritable moods lasting at least 1 week, and are present for most of the day. The symptoms that are included are impulsive behavior, unusual talkativeness, racing thoughts and the decreased need for sleep. The manic episodes that were portrayed in the film were his readings of every single book on his wife’s reading list to win her back over, Patrick seeing his wife in the shower with his co-worker, the song from their wedding that played in the background, his violent outbursts and even delusions. When Patrick had his outbursts of violently attacking Nikki’s lover, he seemed to have notice in that moment that he was going a million miles a minute, but doesn’t necessarily understand the repercussions of what he had done. He wanted to get back with his wife by trying to lose weight at the gym and dressing nice for her to see if she would notice. Many people during mania are also prone to have delusions. Patrick also had a variety of delusions one of them for example, in the movie Patrick describes a week before the shower incident, he called the cops on his wife and the man she was in the shower with because Pat believed that they were plotting against him by embezzling money from the local high school, in which he later realizes was a delusion as a result of his “undiagnosed” disorder. He also was in a situation at the Eagle’s game with his father, Patrick Sr., who had beat up several people in the stadium, which was an example of behavioral genetics, the study of the inheritance of behavioral traits in this case it would be Patrick Jr. having a manic episode just like his father. The term bipolar disorder suggests that those with manic episodes also experience the opposite of it, which is depression, a mental state characterized by a severely lowered mood and related symptoms such as sadness, hopelessness, agitation, anger, concentration problems, loss of energy, etc. The result is the extreme mood states that are often associated with severe distress and impairment and require consistent and intensive medication management. The environment that Patrick Jr. grew up in was not a very good one because Patrick grew up in a very dysfunctional family, where his father always causes fights and his mother tries to resolve everything. He also had friends and even family, his younger brother, Jake, who always put him down with everything in his life and he lost his wife, Nikki, and feels like he just wants to give up until he meets a woman named Tiffany.
Tiffany Maxwell, the sister of Pat Jr.’s best friend’s wife, was known to have the most accurate and interesting portrayal of mental illness in the film such as Borderline Personality Disorder, but was never applied to her. She also had signs of Major Depressive Disorder as well. Tiffany was referred as “crazy”, “a sex addict” and even “unstable”, which fit her pretty well. Throughout this film, we continue to learn that she has a history of extreme emotional reactions, compulsive and impulsive areas that are potentially self-damaging such as sexual activity and substance abuse (drinking), difficulty controlling anger (restaurant scene when Pat Jr. is walking with her on the street during Halloween), unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, chronic feelings of emptiness (chasing after men to “fill” this emptiness), and even self-harm due to losing her husband for most reasons. These are the triggers for a Borderline Personality Disorder, an emotionally unstable disorder that has a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior with varying moods and self-image. This disorder type only continues to get worse over the years because there was never a clear treatment.
There are many types of treatments available for most of these mental disorders that these characters developed throughout the film. Patrick Sr. was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Many treatments nowadays that are used to help with this disorder are the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure Therapy. The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is based on the concept that an individual’s negative thinking patterns will change and the self-defeating behaviors can have a powerful effect on a person’s emotions. When attending this type of therapy, it should help clients develop coping skills that enable them to be more in control of their own thoughts and their actions. Group treatment programs successfully help patients coping with anxiety and several related problems. Patrick Sr. should consider taking some of these classes because of his anger when people touch his belongings and anger when other people disagree with him, for example when he beat those guys up at the Eagle’s stadium. Exposure therapy is another good treatment because people who have OCD are placed in situations where they are exposed to things that will trigger their anxiety asked not to expose their compulsions, which usually help ease their anxiety and distress. This will help control and how to react to difficult situations that come about. Medications are also an option such as antidepressants for example, Fluoxetine (Luvox) and Sertraline (Zoloft), which help with the symptoms of OCD and anxiety. The Generalized Anxiety Disorder would also work with the cognitive behavioral therapy and even taking other antidepressants to help calm them down. Dolores with having her “little” anxiety attacks interpersonally should also think about this therapy because it will help keep herself calm a bit and not work herself up when others fight. Overall, the cognitive behavioral therapy is the most common approach to treating anxiety disorders and OCD.
Patrick Jr. had a diagnosis of a Bipolar Disorder I with few manic episodes and even depression. There are many types of treatment such as psychotherapy, mood stabilizers and antidepressants. A form of psychotherapy would be the cognitive behavioral therapy that treats problems and boosts happiness by modifying dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and thoughts. Patrick strived to “recreate” himself and his image. He thought positive about himself in his effort to win back his wife, Nikki. The exposure therapy also took place in this movie because Pat Jr. was exposed to his wedding song, which was when he caught his wife with another professor from the school he taught at. He eventually learned over time not to react to the song when he heard the song because he realized that his feelings were growing for Tiffany and that was all that mattered. Mood stabilizers are medications like Lithium that are the most commonly used to treat manic symptoms. These medications are designed to stabilize mood from going too high or too low often have unpleasant side effects, including the “blunting” of emotions. Antidepressants are also a good form of treatment if an individual has a bipolar disorder. There were many examples in the movie such as the dinner at Ronnie’s where this scene was referenced to the different drugs that may be used to treat bipolar disorder and depression. The medications that were mentioned within the film were Trazodone, which is an antidepressant that affects chemicals in the brain that may be unbalanced, Lithium which is the most widely used medication for treating bipolar disorder, and Seroquel, an antipsychotic drug used to reduce the manic episodes. Therapy sessions are always an option as well when it comes to talking about your problems and what is wrong. With having depression, therapy sessions would be okay even though it may take time to find the right individual therapist that you trust and medications such as antidepressants like serotonin inhibitors and other types of drugs to help regulate the neurotransmitter, serotonin, in our bodies. It is believed to help with social behaviors, appetite and digestion, sleep, memory and sexual desire and even functioning.
Tiffany Maxwell on the other hand suffered from severe Borderline Personality Disorder and a form of Major Depressive Disorder. Although there are no “specific” treatments to help with the disorder, psychotherapy sessions and some medications may be used to help with the symptoms. Some medications that may be used for the help of co-occurring problems would be antidepressants, antipsychotics, or mood-stabilizing drugs. Borderline personality disorder is hard to treat because it was said that those who often seek out treatment for themselves, many tend to leave therapy. Some individuals may be triggered easily in therapy, which can be difficult for them to regular those emotions in person with another human being. Major depressive disorder can be treated by psychotherapy and antidepressant medications. Those with this type of disorder often deal with it on their own by seeking their own kind of help. Patrick and Tiffany dealt with both of their issues together by supporting one another and helping them focus on what mattered to them the most. An example that helped them both stay calm was the dancing, by going to the competition, it allowed them to free their minds and just be happy.
This film overall was amazing and so fascinating. It really makes you open your eyes and to see how reality is. There were many family issues that went on between Pat and Tiffany’s family such as economic problems and dealing with issues of their own. Patrick’s father had lost his business and lost out on a lot of money, but eventually opened up a restaurant to keep himself busy and happy again. Tiffany struggled to deal with the loss of her husband in a car accident, but never gave up on herself. This movie showed that by having any kind of mental illness, it can really impact not only themselves but their families as well. I think that there was a lack of the depressive episodes at some points but you could really see how effect everyone’s actions were towards each other. Although this film was greatly shown, there were some inaccuracies of the film. It was portrayed as being a “romantic comedy”, but the seriousness was sometimes a joke and having a mental disorder is serious. For example, the therapist, Dr. Patel, was seen as serious and legitimate. He was a mentor for Patrick at first, but then later had joined Pat in an Eagles fan brawl. Another example was that the movie showed the dance competition scene and it seems to as shown that Pat miraculously healed from many of his symptoms from his Bipolar disorder. In the real world, having this type of disorder could have long term dedication to therapy and other types of treatment. The movie was an excellent choice, but I think that the producers could have made the characters a little more about their mental disorders.