Sunday, October 28, 2012

Psychopathology Film Analysis: Black Swan



Black Swan     

Plot Summary:

            This film was about a ballerina, Nina, who was obsessed with having a dual role, the Black and White Swan, during a production of Swan Lake. Because of her personality, no one think turning into a seducing Black Swan was possible for her. Her striving for perfection has turned her to be more and more mentally disturbed. She finally embodied and perfectly danced as the swans, however, she ended up killing herself for it. Schizophrenia accompanied with Eating Disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) was well portrayed in this character.

Disorder:

Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder in which disturbed thought processes, distorted perceptions, unusual emotions, and motor abnormalities deteriorates personality functioning (Comer, 2010). Common symptoms include delusion, hallucination, and other disturbances in thought, perception and behavior, inappropriate affect, blunt and flat emotion, and impaired social skills (Student Notes).

From the movie, Nina slipped away from reality in various ways. She suffered a lot from delusion persecution, and that Lily was after her, replacing her role after a night out together. Moreover, her visual hallucinations were very obvious. For example, she saw faces in the paintings and stuff animal in her bedroom were moving and alive. She often saw another version of herself in the subway. She saw herself transforming into a Black Swan with blood around her finger nails, growing feathers, webbed feet, and elongated neck. Also, she hallucinated herself having sex with Lily, later violently fight with her, and killed her.

Eating Disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) is other eating disorders that cannot be diagnosed as anorexic or bulimic due to missing symptoms. She showed some symptoms of anorexic nervosa. She has intense fear of gaining weight by turning away from the cake her mother bought to celebrate her Swan Queen role. She has disturbed body perception, always seeks for perfection, and not very social. She also showed some symptom of bulimia nervosa, for example, she had recurrent inappropriate behavior intended to prevent weight gain that is purging or throwing up food that she ate even though it was just a simple grape fruit.

Causes:

Biological – Nina could inherit biological predisposition to schizophrenic and eating disorder. She develop the disorder later after facing the extreme stressors of highly stressful competition, relationship conflict with mother, being a sexual harassed by the director, etc. Moreover, schizophrenia is related to biochemical factor. She could have abnormal activity or interactions of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin (Student Notes). The ecstasy that she took could also be a powerful hallucinogen that triggered psychotic occurrences.

Psychodynamic – According to Freud, schizophrenic develops from the regression to a pre-ego stage and effort to reestablish ego control. Disturbed mother-child interactions lead to serious ego deficiencies in Nina to severe perceptual disturbances that eventually produce eating disorders (Comer, 2010).

Cognitive – People develop delusional thinking when they try to understand their unusual experiences, strange biological sensation. Nina could start with experiencing some kind of hallucination as a result from biological sensation, and later try to understand and make sense of those strange sensations, and eventually develop into misinterpretations and delusion that she is being persecuted, and turning into Black Swan in order to perfect (Comer, 2010).

Treatment:

Biological – Antipsychotic drugs can reduce delusion and hallucination those symptoms.

Psychotherapy – Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for schizophrenia is to guide patients to more accurate interpretation of their experiences. For eating disorder, focus on social deficits, normalizing eating patterns by changing her behaviors and thought process.

Family & Social Therapy can also be very effective. People with schizophrenia can actually discuss with others their real-life problem.

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