Mental Health
1. Unfortunately many individuals in our society are considered at "great risk" for psychological problems. Identify the psychosocial issues in the movie that should cause individuals to seek professional counseling help? (Even if some individuals could not afford to pay).
In the movie “Girl Interrupted”, there were several psychological problems depicted by the characters and the most prominent among them are the characters of Susanna, which was diagnosed of Borderline Personality Disorder and Lisa who was diagnosed of being a Sociopath. These mental disorders can be considered to pose a great risk to the society and requires professional help upon diagnosis. Sociopath is among the most common mental disorder according to the American Psychiatric Association (National Collaborating Center for Mental Health, 2010). It is characterized as the person having no apparent sense of conscience and only cares about fulfilling their own needs or otherwise extreme egocentricity. People diagnosed of such illness needs professional help even if they cannot afford to pay for treatment because letting the behaviors associated to Sociopath creates risk to the general public particularly. The same goes with Borderline personality disorder because of the behavioral pattern of instability to control emotions, interpersonal relationship and self-image. The risk involve in BPD is the harm that they could cause to themselves and to other due to their suicidal tendencies.
2. If an individual was hospitalized or attended a mental health clinic for the problems you identified in the above question, as a psychiatric nurse, what type of nursing approaches would you take to address their problems. (Identify the problem like the example showsyou can have more than one just be sure to identify them accordingly)
Problem 1: Sociopath
Approach
- Remain skeptical particularly during the assessment process
- Avoid denying the and normalizing danger because patients might demonstrate a charisma that often lures the staff to be forgiving when responding to the patient’s behavioral outburst.
- Being aware of the patient’s emotional polarity
- Be aware of the risks in the patient’s act of sexual seduction
- Ensure that the less experienced staff is being supervised by an experienced staff
(Fagin, 2004)
Problem 2: Borderline Personality Disorder
Approach
- Retain flexibility
- Establish the safety conditions of the patient
- Be aware of the suicidal tendencies
- Become more tolerate to aggression, anger and hate
- Maintain and always establish therapeutic alliance
- Monitor any occurrences of counter-transference feelings
(Fagin, 2004)
3. What type of preventive measures could have been taken to eliminate the problem or problems you identified?
There are several preventive measures that could have been taken to eliminate the aforementioned personality disorders. Evidence-based risk and protective factors is one of the effective strategies, which talks about determining the environmental, social economic factors that have caused the disorder and remove the patient away from such factors. Improving the quality of life and reducing risk by means of macro-strategy is also an effective preventive measure. It is by means of improving nutrition, access to education, and housing, economic security and considering the harms of addictive substances. Eliminating stressors would also help to prevent the problem in the first place if the there were any hints of promoting health, reducing abuse and neglect, coping with emotional distress and enhancing resilience.
4. Identify one agency in the community that would be of help to an individual dealing with one psychosocial problem you identified.
Problem: Personality disorders determined as Sociopath and Borderline Personality Disorder
Agency: The Waterview Center is an example of a community-based agency that helps individuals with long-standing interpersonal and emotional problems that manifests as a developing mental disorder. The services they provide were designed to for individuals that showed tendencies of harming behaviors. For a much comprehensive treatment and diagnostic requirement, the National Institute of Mental Health would be a great help for the people suffering personality disorders.
5. Do you think there is any educational benefit to viewing this movie for Behavioral Health? Explain you answer if yes or no.
Watching the movie “Girl Interrupted” will enable a person to know more about the described personality disorders. Furthermore, the educational values that the audience can get from the movie are the benefit of being aware of the behavioral manifestations of the described mental illness. Therefore, the experience of learning about the symptoms and behavioral manifestations depicted in the movie can be used as a point of reference for anyone in judging whether or not any of their loved ones is in need of professional help. Therefore, it is a Yes.
References
Fagin, L. (2004). Management of personality disorders in acute in-patient settings. Part 1: Borderline personality disorders. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, (10), 93-99. doi:10.1192/apt.10.2.93
Fagin, L. (2004). Management of personality disorders in acute in-patient settings. Part 2: Less-common personality disorders. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, (10), 100-106. doi:10.1192/apt.10.2.100
National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (Great Britain), National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Great Britain), British Psychological Society, & Royal College of Psychiatrists (2010). Antisocial personality disorder: Treatment, management, and prevention. Leicester, England: British Psychological Society.
