The Dangerous Method
Plot Summary:
This film is about the emergence of psychoanalysis, the intense
relationship between the psychiatrists Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, and more
centrally on the affair between the married Carl Jung and his Jewish-Russian
patient Sabina Spielrein. As Sabina was being treated, Sexual Masochism and
Conversion Disorder (Hysteria) was well portrayed throughout the movie.
Disorder:
Sexual
Masochism is a paraphilia characterized by intense and
repeated sexual urges, behaviors, or fantasies that involve pain and
degradation, for examples, by being beaten, bound, humiliated, or otherwise
made to suffer (Comer, 2010). Most masochism begins in childhood but the urges
acts out later during early adulthood, especially in the time of stress, and it
may continue for many years (Comer, 2010).
From
the movie, Sabina could always recall her first time being beaten by her father
when she was about four. That time, she broke a plate, then her father told her
to go to the little room and take her cloth off, there, he would spanked her
hard but Sabina would always liked it, it always excited her, and she continued
to like it more and more. Later on, every time she was called to that little room,
she would get wet, some sort of arousal, and she would start touching herself.
Moreover, at the scene when Sabina dropped Jung’s coat, Jung picked it up and
clean it by hitting the coat with a stick. That time, Sabina immediately and
furiously stopped him because it also excited her, making her masturbate at that
night. Furthermore, Sabina always seek for humiliation, any kind of
humiliation. When Jung had a secret affair with Sabina, Sabina told him that
they have a different thing, that she wanted him to be furious at her,
humiliate her, and punish her. In many scenes with Jung and Sabina having
sexual intercourse showed that Sabina love it when Jung spanked her buttock
with his hand, a stick, or a belt.
Conversion
Disorder, also known as Hysteria, is a somatoform disorder
in which a psychosocial need or conflict is converted into dramatic physical
symptoms that affect voluntary motor and sensory function without any
underlying organic cause (Comer, 2010). Sabina showed clear physical symptoms,
primarily motor ones, at the beginning of the movie and at times of stress, she
completely lost control of the movement—her lower jaw would unintentionally
stick in and out, her fingers and hands uncontrollably grasped tightly, her
elbows, arm, and body involuntary move around, back and forth, with every part
of her muscles seemed uncontrollably tense, tighten and stiff. She was in a
very torturous posture.
Causes:
Biological – She
might have nervous system prone to errors in targeting (Student Notes).
Behavioral
–
Sabina sexual masochism could develop through classical conditioning. After the
father spanked her, she was asked to kiss his hand or the father could be the
one kissing her. This may reveal the association made between pain and erotic
arousal that may have been the cause of her later masochistic urges and acts. According
to the behavioral learning theory, Sabina, as a child, is the victim to observe
inappropriate sexual behaviors. She then learned to imitator and those behavior
happen to be reinforced, leading to masochism.
Psychodynamic – According
to Freud, Sabina hysteric symptoms were caused by her sexually repressed energy
(unconscious desired). Her primary gain of those symptoms is to keep her
internal conflict out of awareness. She could also achieve secondary gain from
them that enable her to avoid responsible, unpleasant activities or to receive
attention, sympathy, or even financial compensation from others (Student Notes).
Cognitive –
The purpose of the conversing emotion into physical symptoms is not, like
psychodynamic, to defend oneself but to communicate extreme feelings of, for
examples, fear depression, jealously, guild, anger, etc, into a more
comfortable physical language for her (Comer, 2010).
Treatment:
Biological – Antianxiety
and antidepressant drugs could help reduce her anxiety.
Psychodynamic – Therapists help patients
to become conscious about the underlying fear or needs and eliminate the need
to convert anxiety into physical symptoms (Comer, 2010).
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