Many people suffer from mental illnesses, some of whom we may be able to identify, and some we may not. A mental illness is a condition that can affect mood, thinking and behavior. The DSM-5, which is a manual of mental disorders, it consists of classification for over 200 mental disorders. The DSM 5 is used as a guide to understand symptoms and is also used to help treat clients. These mental illness range from something as unusual as hoarding disorder, to something as serious as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD would fall under trauma and stress related disorders in the DSM-5. PTSD is a condition in which someone undergoes a traumatic event, could be sexual violence, close to death experience, or a serious injury, and afterward they experience some sort of arousal, anxiety, guilt and depression. These victims suffer from symptoms such as reexperiencing the traumatic event, such as having flashbacks of the traumatic event and dreams and nightmares as well. People who have PTSD have these ongoing symptoms for longer than 4 weeks, they try to avoid remembering what happened, or going near places that remind them of the traumatic event.
Chosen Media
I have chosen the movie called The Unsaid. The character I have chosen is named Tommy. (Thomas Caffrey) Tommy is a teenage boy who is going through a tough time in life. Tommy lives in a boys home because his mother is deceased and his father was put away in jail. Tommy is not like average teenage boys. When Tommy was younger he witnessed his father kill his mother. Tommy was the only witness there and was the only one who knew what really happened, but he blocked out the horrific memory from his head. It turns out that the mother was sexually abusing Tommy and his father walked in and killed her out of anger. Ever since the incident Tommy never felt comfortable letting a female touch him, he would feel the need to protect himself. In the movie Tommy ended up killing one of his peers because she tried to get him to engage in sexual acts with her.
Character’s Experience of Psychopathology
I believe that Tommy suffers from PTSD. As stated in the introduction, people who suffer from PTSD, try to avoid remembering the trauma. In the movie, Tommy had no recollection of what happened, or even the fact that he was being sexually abused. Tommy believed that his mother was innocent and his father killed her for no reason. Tommy hid away what really happened that night in effort to protect himself. He would have flashbacks of the night, but only flashbacks of him running to his house and seeing his mother lying on the ground dead, nothing beforehand. Although tommy did not display all the signs of PTSD, it was clear this was his diagnosis. In the movie, Tommy ended up killing a female because he was scared, he had anxiety because she was touching him, trying to get him to engage in sexual activities with her. After killing her, Tommy was confused as to why he did it. Those who suffer from PTSD tend to have mood disturbances, and so did Tommy. He was placed in a home where his behavior, and mood was monitored. Tommy has a trend of violent behavior, which is not a symptom of PTSD. He killed someone and wounded another due to to his anxiety and mood disturbances.
Theories of Psychopathology
There are four major concepts used in psychology to explain human behavior, they are biological, behavioral, cognitive, and sociocultural perspectives. In this movie, I noticed that the learning perspective was shown the most. Behavioral perspective sees behaviors as being learned and the results of an individual’s environmental influences. People may behave violently because violent behavior has been rewarded in their pasts or because they have seen someone who is important to them commit these violent acts. In the movie, Tommy kills a girl because she offered him sex, every time a girl was to touch Tommy or make him feel uncomfortable his first thought was to hurt the girl. This is an example of behavioral. Tommy seen his father beat his mother to death, that is where he got his violence act from.
Another concept associated with this movie would be the cognitive concept. The cognitive concept is concerned with understanding mental processes like memory, perception, thinking, and problem solving, and how they are related to behavior. In this movie, it wasn’t released until later that Tommy was being abused by his mother. He, himself didn’t know that his mother abused him. When they showed flashbacks of what happened that night, all Tommy could remember was running into the house and seeing his mother lying dead covered in blood. He denied there ever being another man like his father had stated in the report and in his statement. Tommy hid the fact that it was him that his father caught with his mom. He buried the memory deep so he wouldn’t have to face the truth.That it was actually him that caused his father to kill his mother.
Critique of Media Portrayal
The media conveys a normal message about the disorder, in my opinion they showed a great example of someone with PTSD. The character showed the symptoms stated in the DSM-5, it wasn’t biased, nor was it exaggerated. Nowhere in the movie did they state that tommy had PTSD. They showed his symptoms, which led to my diagnoses as PTSD. The way I see it, this is a normal way of behaving for someone who has PTSD, other than the fact that Tommy was violent. He was violent because it was a learned behavior. Again, he experienced a trauma, seeing the death of his mother and being sexually abused. Ths trauma triggered these symptoms; mood disturbances, memory difficulties, anxiety and heightened arousal. Tommys symptoms were longer than 4 weeks, therefore making him diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.