Girl Interrupted Mental Illness

On Analyzing: Girl, Interrupted

Set in the mid to late 1960s, Girl, Interrupted directed by James Mangold is a psychological drama released in 1999. The film is based on Susanna Kaysen’s memoir, which follows Susanna’s experience when sent to Mclean Hospital at eighteen years old, following her suicide attempt. Susanna meets several other women in the ward when sent to the psychiatric hospital, such as Lisa, Daisy, Polly, and Georgina, who all have their individual stories as to why they are staying at the hospital. As the film tracks Susanna’s time at Mclean, the stories of the other women unfold, and the deep psychological disturbances concealed by some of the characters begin to reveal themselves, alongside many unsettling and disturbing

Although this diagnosis is accurate and agrees with the symptoms of OCD, for Daisy, OCD is found to be embedded in all parts of Daisy’s personality. Daisy displays a pattern of obsessions and compulsions which are ingrained into her lifestyle and way of thinking, therefore, perhaps a more accurate diagnosis for Daisy would be Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. Not only does Daisy take part in rituals and all sorts of compulsions, Daisy is ignorant to the negative effects of her compulsions. Being naive to one’s disorder tends to be a characteristic of people with personality disorders, as their disorder is so deeply ingrained into their mind that they do not think anything of it, and therefore will not seek treatment. Evidence from the film that proves perhaps Daisy’s disorder is more of the nature of a personality disorder is her reluctance to admit that she is struggling. She even managed to be released from the hospital, and live on her own (Girl, Interrupted

Personality disorders are notoriously difficult to treat since they are embedded into one’s personality, and the person who has the personality disorder will not seek treatment since they are naive to the problem due to its deep embedment into their character. Whereas, people with OCD will be more likely to seek treatment as they have self awareness to do so and recognize a problem they have. Psychotherapy is the main treatment of choice used for OCPD. In this type of treatment, patients will dive into the root causes of their OCPD. According to Cleveland Clinic “The goal of treatment is to help the person uncover the motivations and fears associated with their thoughts and behavior” (Cleveland