The motion picture “The Aviator” is a biography based on the life of a man named Howard Hughes. Hughes was a very successful film director in the 1930s and also became a prominent figure in the aviation world. Howard had all the money and fame he could ever ask for but unfortunately, he was stricken with mental illness. In this paper I am going to explain what DSM-5 disorder I believe Howard had and what caused it, I will give examples to how the disorder affected his life, and I will attempt to propose a treatment that would have helped him.
From watching the movie I believe that Howard Hughes diagnosis is a comorbidity of obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by the presence of obsessions and compulsions which affect the
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There are many other obsessions that Hughes had in the film. In one scene Hughes had a very specific food order, requesting ten chocolate chip cookies with medium chocolate chips placed in the center and away from the outer edges. Howard was also sexually obsessed and hopped around from woman to woman. Compulsions are another key part of OCD and they are an urge that one gets to do something, more specifically a ritual, and cannot be avoided or escaped unless acted upon. Howard struggled most intensely with germaphobia. He would bring his own soap to the bathroom to wash his hands and would scrub his hands until they began to bleed. Once he was done washing them he was unable to touch the door handle in order to leave the restroom and had to wait for somebody else to do it for him. Another frequent compulsion he had was talking and directing himself in the third person and constantly repeating words over and over. Anxiety also played a role in the life