The movie, As Good As It Gets, is about a romance novelist, Melvin Udall. He is grumpy, rude and has absolutely no empathy. He also has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The movie is based in New York City, and the plot is based around three people, Melvin, Carol, a single mother and waitress, and Simon, a self-supporting artist, who all come together and become unlikely friends. The character I felt the most interested in analyzing is Melvin Udall. I think OCD is a very interesting, yet complex disorder, so I thought he would be the perfect character to look more into. The psychiatrist Melvin visits in the movie reveals to the audience that he has OCD, but it is very apparent before this scene that Melvin has this disorder. According …show more content…
The first being the must show presence of obsessions or compulsions. Second, the obsessions/compulsions take more than 1 hour per day, meaning they are time consuming. Also, like all disorders, the obsessions or compulsions must cause clinical distress in social, occupational or other critical areas of functioning. Third, the obsessive-compulsive symptoms must not be substance related. And finally, the disturbance of this disorder cant be better explained with a different mental disorder diagnosis. Also included in the diagnosis process is seeing if the patient is with good or fair insight, with poor insight, or with absent insight/delusional beliefs (American Psychiatric Association, …show more content…
The movie shows how severe and detrimental this disorder can be, but it also gives hope of recovery. As the movie comes to and end, you can see that some of Melvin’s major obsession and compulsions have weakened. For example, he forgets to lock his door, he becomes more physical with Carol (suggesting that his fear of contamination has diminished), and at the very end of the movie he steps on sidewalk cracks. This improvement of Melvin’s condition can be associated with correct medication use, going to therapy/receiving CBT, and having breaks in his routine. The presence of Carol and his neighbor, Simon all contributes to messing up his routine, which ends up being very beneficial to treatment of his OCD. I think that this is a pretty accurate representation of how OCD is treated and offers hope for those trying to treat their own OCD. But I will say that this is a movie after all, so this is a little bit of a glorified and too perfect recovery from OCD. There will definitely be more ups and down in a real life situation. Overall, I think the movie As Good As It Gets does a great job of presenting Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It shows the many struggles one with OCD may face, but also shows hope for recovery and living a normal
To begin, the relationship between Davis and Aza is key to Aza’s OCD improving, for two reasons. At first, Aza says when talking about Davis, “It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see,” (Green, 2017, p.9). Davis also has OCD, which is why he sees the same world that Aza sees, but in the process of seeing the same world, Aza can connect to someone who knows what is going on, not just someone who learned about it. This improves her OCD because she is now aware she isn’t the only person who is going through this struggle. She is no longer isolated. The other way Davis improves Aza’s OCD is through the idea that everything has to get worse before it gets better. Aza and Davis hold hands, like any two people dating would, but on Aza’s finger, her weakest spot lays there (her habit of pressing her fingernail into the skin). This is Aza giving up the source of her OCD and surrendering it to Davis. This here shows a positive relationship because Aza is giving him her weaknesses because of the trust they have. But, after this, Aza’s OCD voice kicks in, wreaking havoc over her life because she gave her weakness up. Her OCD fights with her own voice saying that, “Eighty million organisms in me forever calm down permanently altering the microbiome this is not rational you need to do something please this is a fix here please get to a bathroom,” (Green, 2017, p. 153). This is the discussion between Aza and her OCD who has become almost like a second person living inside of her head, developing more when Aza gets closer and closer to Davis. Switching gears, Aza only reconnected with Davis for the fact that both her and Daisy wanted leads to the whereabouts of Russell Pickett to get the prize. This places a severe amount of pressure onto Aza because she has a secret that she is forced to keep to herself, knowing that if she were to tell
The Shinning, a horror movie that was released in 1980, featured Jack Nicholson, as a writer who is left in charge of the Overlook hotel during the winter. During this time Jack began to developed schizophrenia among many other personality and mood disorders and attempts to murder his own family. After reviewing this film it became apparent that there was a mixture of accuracy and exaggeration of the development of schizophrenia. Jack had this disorder, but also had symptoms of other personality and mood disorders. For the sake of Hollywood the film did take schizophrenia to entirely new levels. Some of this hype was generated around Jack becoming a full fledge killer. The delusions that he suffered from were undeniably crazed and did have a central theme; however, they were induced by other substances. The themes that ran strong throughout this movie were persuasion. Jack was constantly told by his delusions that he needed to take control and steer his family in his own direction. When his family urged him to leave this hotel, it only generated more hostility and anxiety, which pushed the decline of his mental health.
The 1999 film girl Interrupted directed by James Mangold staring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, is an adaptation of Susanna Kaysen’s biography, about her experiences at a psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed with Borderline personality disorder in the 1960’s. The film follows the story of a teenage girl named Susanna who is admitted to Claymore hospital after attempting to commit suicide by overdosing on a mixture of aspirin and vodka. The film makes it very clear to the viewer, in more than one scene, that Susanna often questions her diagnosis, in the film’s opening monologue Susanna says, “Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you had the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while
The protagonist in the motion picture Good Will Hunting is called Will, and he is described to be a high intellect person but with recluse tendencies whereby he has kept to himself mostly having only a few friends near him. The young adult is employed as a janitor in the university where can work out a difficult question presented to the students by the professor. The problem appears to be quite difficult for the students, but he does not struggle. The teacher takes an interest in the young man and stands for him in court and takes responsible for him. He takes him to therapy to treat his psychological disorder which becomes apparent with the actions and words that he utters in the film. Will is tough in the therapy sessions until he later
Felix Unger is a fictional character in the TV series The Odd Couple that first aired from 1970 to 1975 on ABC. This series was just resurrected again in 2015 airing Wednesday nights on CBS and seems to be going strong. I have only watched it a few times but the evidence of obsessive compulsive disorder in Felix Unger played by Actor Thomas Lennon is unmistakable. Felix is clearly a control freak with tendencies to get upset easily when things don’t work out the way he feels they should or when things are unorganized and messy. Felix is currently living with his recently divorced old college buddy
This was not seen as a disease or disorder but instead as a large character flaw, and for those interacting with him would feel that he choose to act this way. The film brought to light how our first encounter with a person suffering from OCPD might be and how we might react. Our initial reaction is to be offended, without wondering why they act the way they do. The restaurant erupted in applause as Melvin was asked to leave. However the waitress treated him with respect and compassion. Did she see something in his behavior that she recognized in herself or was she just nice. I felt the movie brought awareness to abnormal behavior and the underling circumstance behind it. Melvin briefly described his childhood, hit with a ruler and “dad didn’t come out of his room for days”. His childhood must have had some impact on his abnormalities. I feel this film helps viewer to have a better understanding of mental illness. The lesson being, we should be less quick to judge and more inclined to try and understand a person’s behavior and that compassion and empathy can influence ones progression to get
The movie, Augusta Gone, portrays a teenage girl, whose life had turned completely upside down in the blink of an eye. Her name was Augusta and she had no idea what she walked herself into.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a disease that afflicts up to six million Americans, however all its characteristics are yet to be fully understood. Its causes, triggers, attributes, and variations are still unknown although effective medicines exist to treat the symptoms. OCD is a very peculiar disease as Rapoport discusses it comes in many different forms and have different symptoms yet have many similarities. One sure aspect is that it appears, or at least its symptoms do, out of the blue and is triggered either by stressful experiences or, most of the time, just appears out of nowhere. One example is a boy who's father was hard on him for being affected by the worlds "modern ways", the boy at a high school party tries LSD ( a hallucinatory drug), after that thoughts of whether his mind was dangerously affected by the drug. What seemed like completely appropriate worrying and anxiety turned into attacks of anxiety, he couldn't shake the thoughts that something was wrong with his mind. Essentially he had "his mind on his mind" constantly and that haunted his days his thought were as follows: " did the lsd do anything to my mind? The thought never went away ; instead it got more and more complicated. There must be something wrong with my mind if i am spending so much time worrying about it. Is there something wrong with my mind? Was this from the lsd? Will it ever get better?" (The boy who, J. L. Rapoport 125,126) Dr. Rapoport promptly put him on Anafranil (an anti-depressant, used for OCD, not marketed in the U.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a disorder which causes people to develop an anxiety when certain obsessions or compulsions are not fulfilled. OCD can affect both children and adults with more than half of all adults with OCD stating that they experienced signs as a child. People living with OCD display many obvious signs such as opening and closing a door fifty times because they have to do it “just right”. Others exhibit extreme cleanliness and will wash their hands or take showers as often as they can because they constantly feel dirty. OCD devastates people’s social lives as they are fixated and obsessed with perfection that can take forever to achieve. However people living with OCD are often found to have an above average intelligence and typically excel at school due to their detail oriented mindset, cautious planning and patience. OCD can be caused by many different factors such as genetics or the ever changing world a...
There are multiple criteria that come into play when determining a psychological disorder. One reason is because, it is hard to know for sure if an action is abnormal or not. Something could be abnormal in our country, but a custom in another.
Carol's disruption of his routine is what triggered his OCD, but she was able to point out the problems of his OCD and still be able to show him, love, unlike others who made fun of him. What Carol did was effective because she triggered his feelings of doubt and desire for perfection, then intervened and gave her life story to him to show that her life was not always perfect either. Her hope and positivity on life are what eventually inspires Melvin to confront his OCD, and become a better man so he can have a relationship with
Jakubovski, E., Diniz, J. B., Valerio, C., Fossaluza, V., Belotto-Silva, C., Gorenstein, C., …Shavitt, R. G. (2013). Clinical predictors of long-term outcome in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Depression and Anxiety, 30, 763-772. doi 10.1002/da.22013
The protagonist in the film As Good As It Gets, Melvin Udall is a successful romantic novelist who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. From the onset of the film, Melvin displays ritualistic behavior that aligns with the diagnostic criteria for OCD, specifically the presence of obsessions, compulsions, or both. This paper focuses on Melvin’s particular psychopathology, analyzing the character’s current symptoms and diagnoses, the etiology of the disorder, and the key elements of his treatment.
An exceptionally tall, Native American, Chief Bromden, trapped in the Oregon psychiatric ward, suffers from the psychological condition of paranoid schizophrenia. This fictional character in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest struggles with extreme mental illness, but he also falls victim to the choking grasp of society, which worsens Bromden’s condition. Paranoid schizophrenia is a rare mental illness that leads to heavy delusions and hallucinations among other, less serious, symptoms. Through the love and compassion that Bromden’s inmate, Randle Patrick McMurphy, gives Chief Bromden, he is able to briefly overcome paranoid schizophrenia and escape the dehumanizing psychiatric ward that he is held prisoner in.
...ot simply a social analogy portraying modern society's dislike and ultimate destruction of anyone who consistently upsets the status quo. It is this, but it also is exactly what the story line indicates. It is a graphic story clearly showing the lack of humanity, oppression, coercion, brute force and destructiveness of the modern "mental health" field. Without the firm denial of Man and his mind, they're largely the same thing in the end, none of these things could ever occur. The movie contains many situations where the status quo attempts to control those who choose to walk outside the system and force them back into line. Modern psychiatry and psychology primarily serve that function of control seemingly required by society and civilization. It is not about help and betterment. It has never been about help or betterment.