How Did Charlie Fineman Use Ptsd In Reign Over Me

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been accurately portrayed throughout the film Reign Over Me. The main character, Charlie Fineman, has displayed many symptoms of a PTSD victim. Some of which included social isolation, paranoia, memory loss, and obsessions (Binder, Rotenberg, & Binder, 2007). Those with PTSD often avoid people, places, and situations that remind them of the traumatic event. The reason is because those things can trigger their memories and cause them to relive the incident. In the film, Alan Johnson received a call from his wife and was informed about his father’s death. Once Alan told Charlie about the news, Charlie completely changed the subject. He does this because he does not want to be reminded about death after

The film did an excellent job portraying this when Charlie walked in the music store and almost immediately spotted a shrink. As they were having lunch, he remembered the man was holding a Bob Seager. He uses this to his advantage by testing the man about Bob Seager and exposes him with a trick question. Charlie also displayed outbursts of anger towards Alan when he believed Alan was trying to bring up his past (Binder, Rotenberg, & Binder, 2007). One noticeable thing from the film was that Charlie Fineman always looked confused. It seems like his post-traumatic stress disorder may have something to do with this state of confusion. However, research data from a study of sexually abused children with and without post-traumatic stress disorder revealed that PTSD does not have a great impact on cognitive inhibition (Barrera, Calderon, & Bell, 2012). Some people with post-traumatic stress disorder experience obsessions. The film was precise when portraying this symptom. Charlie Fineman’s obsessions were collecting music albums and remodeling his kitchen every couple of months. This was his way of remembering his family and trying to cope. After refusing to talk to anyone about what happened to his family, he finally opens to Alan Johnson, his best friend. He explained later in the film that he remodels his kitchen because it’s something his wife wanted to do before she died (Binder, Rotenberg, & Binder,

After a large meta-analysis has been conducted following traumatic events, the results showed a consistent association between avoidance coping and psychological distress (Bekes, Beaulieu-Prevost, Guay, Belleville, & Marchand, 2016). This gives some understanding to why Charlie seems like he is almost always in psychological distress. He copes by attempting to avoid any situation that reminds him of his family. By doing so, his post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms only worsen. Although the film did a great job portraying PTSD, it still had its flaws. For instance, Angela scheduled her patients back to back, which is something psychologists should never do. The reason is because it exposes patients to others and invades their privacy. Some people may not want others to know they have visited a psychologist. In the film, Alan Johnson takes Charlie Fineman to go see Angela and on the way out they see one of Mr. Johnson’s patients, Ms. Remar. This situation could potentially affect Ms. Remar if she did not want others to know who she visits for her issues (Binder, Rotenberg, & Binder,