Reference no: EM132276207

The number of reported diagnoses of mental illness in the U.S. is growing with each generation, and the causes for the increase are multifaceted. Many people know of at least one person with a mental disorder, and more people today are vulnerable to developing symptoms of mental illness. When working in the field of Psychology, you will interact with people who exhibit symptoms of mental illness or have a clinical disorder, or you might have a family member, friend, or neighbor who is experiencing symptoms. The Mass medias in America's culture may depict abnormal behavior as being odd or strange, laughable or inaccurately depicted, when it should be portrayed accurately as abnormal behavior- making the line, at times, between normal and abnormal unrecognizable. Learning to recognize symptoms of mental illness may be essential to your career. For this Assignment, you will have the opportunity to identify symptoms of mental illness and consider cultural influences that teach what acceptable behavior is.

For this Assignment, you will work in groups assigned in Unit 4. For the character exhibiting abnormal behavior that you selected in Unit 4, write a 3 to 4-page double-spaced paper (excluding the title page and reference page) using the Assignment template in Course Documents to explain the following:

1. Name the movie and describe the character's general behavior in question.

2. (a) Identify and list as many symptoms of a mental illness that the character is exhibiting (See DSM-5).
• (b) Referring to the DSM-5, the definition of abnormal behavior from the course textbook, and based on your observation of the character's behavior in the movie, explain why the behavior appears to be abnormal?
• (c) Based on the DSM-5, which mental disorder do you believe the character's symptoms best represent?
• (d) Are there any indications that suggest the character may have a different mental disorder other than the one you have listed in C? If so, why did you dismiss other possible disorders over your chosen disorder?

3. Was the movie's portrayal of the character convoluted or normalized making the distinction of abnormal behavior from that of normal behavior blurred? Explain what cultural influences can make it difficult to identity symptoms of mental disorder. For example, was part of the movie a comedy that joked about the character's behavior, such as Jim Carrey in the movie Me, Myself, and Irene, was addictive behavior normalized, was the behavior downplayed as simply teenage behavior gone "bad", or was the behavior glamorized as a damsel in distress being saved by a hero?

Movie ideas:
• A Beautiful Mind
• American Beauty
• Awakenings
• Basketball Diaries - Jim Carrol
• Benny and Joon
• Borderline
• Born on the 4th of July
• Cobb
• Dirty Filthy Love
• Dying to be Perfect: The Ellen Hart Pena Story
• Finding Nemo - Dory
• He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not
• Infinitely Polar Bear
• Iron Man
• Lila & Eve
• Love & Mercy
• Lust for Life
• Mean Girls
• Melancholia
• Misery
• Mr. Jones
• Numb
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest