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3 pages/≈825 words
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APA
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Psychology
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English (U.S.)
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Topic:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the Joker Film

Essay Instructions:

One of the several objectives of this course is help you to become familiar with diagnostic terms, their purposes and limitations, as well as theories about the development of disorders. Through creation of a case study paper you will experience the opportunity to apply your new knowledge of diagnostic terms and theories to a case description. It will be your task to choose and watch a film that features a character who suffers from a mental disorder that we have covered in class.

●        Describe, briefly, the character who struggles with the mental health disorder (who they are, what they are doing, their struggles / problems in the movie, etc). Please also give the name of the movie.

●        Come up with one or more diagnoses for the character. You will get your diagnosis from the DSM-V (you need to create a reference page and cite the DSM-V appropriately. Refer to the end of these guidelines for citation and reference information). DSM-V criteria for any disorder is easily available through a quick internet search (e.g. depression DSM V diagnosis)

●        Clearly describe the symptoms that you notice and clearly connect these symptoms to the major criteria that make up the diagnoses that you have given. For example:

In this movie I believe that the unnamed character played by Edward Norton has a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I believe this to be the case because he presents with hallucinations and delusions. Some examples of the hallucinations he experiences include…..(continue to describe hallucinations from the movie here). He also presents with some of the negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia. Some of these symptoms include….

●        If there are additional diagnoses / disorders you strongly considered, indicate this in your paper and explain why you decided against these diagnoses (If there are specific diagnoses that are obvious to me- such as schizophrenia in the movie A Beautiful Mind and you do not list schizophrenia as at least a diagnosis you considered, I may take off points).

●        Based on what you know about the disorders (from class / your text) and what you are able to see in the movie, try to explain potential causes and contributing factors that led to the person developing the disorders that you have identified. These could be biological, social, family, and cultural factors that could have contributed to the disorders.

●        Discuss potential treatments. Discuss which treatments you feel are appropriate based on the disorders you have identified in the movie. Explain why you feel these treatments are appropriate. For example:

I believe that prolonged exposure (PE) for trauma may be effective in treating the post-traumatic stress symptoms that this character experiences. I believe this to be the cause because PE has been shown to be highly effective in reducing symptoms related to trauma. I also believe that the protagonist can benefit from….

●        Finally, discuss your prognosis (prognosis is the course of the disorder-i.e. do you think they will get better, worse, stay the same, etc.) and explain why you think this is the case.

ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES

The paper must be at least 3 pages long (this does not include the reference page), APA-style (double-spaced, 12-point font, etc.) You do not need to include a cover page.

To cite the DSM-V in your reference section, use this format:

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington,
          VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.

The basic in-text citation should look like this: (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Essay Sample Content Preview:

The Joker Film Analysis
Student's Name
Institution/Affiliation
Course
Professor
Date.
The Joker Film Analysis
Powerful emotions have been sparked by Todd Phillips' 2019 psychological thriller Joker's representation of the main character's unnamed mental ailment. To determine whether Joker/Arthur Fleck exhibited symptoms of an actual mental illness, I looked at the DSM-5 criteria. An accurate diagnosis of schizophrenia or psychotic disorder cannot be made of Arthur's psychopathology due to its lack of clarity. He instead meets the DSM-5 criteria for narcissistic personality disorder because of the unusual combination of symptoms, which hints at a complex blending of narcissism and psychopathy (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). He also exhibits pseudobulbar affect symptoms brought on by Traumatic Brain Injury. This apparent co-occurrence of a neurological condition and a mental disorder may perplex viewers attempting to comprehend mental illness.
Diagnosis and Symptoms
Even though the specifics of Arthur's condition are never made clear in the film, we may deduce some information from the Joker's signs and emotional state. In his therapy sessions, Arthur identifies "constant unpleasant thoughts" and "loneliness and isolation" as his top worries. The hardest thing about having a mental disease, he wrote in his journal, is that others want you to pretend you do not have one (Phillips, 2019). It is common knowledge that the character attends ongoing therapy sessions and receives various psychiatric medications. He was so intelligent that he asked for more medication. Unfortunately, we do not know much about his family history because he was abandoned as a young child. His foster mother received inpatient therapy and suffered from delusional illness and perhaps a personality condition. Without a father figure, Arthur was raised by a foster mother. According to the foster mother, he was a happy and loving youngster growing up. However, he later endured mistreatment and beatings at the hands of his adoptive parents, even sustaining significant brain damage. As a result, our fictitious patient's case history has many risk factors for mental illnesses. To narrow down the diagnosis and better understand the Joker, we will look into his tendencies towards Pseudobulbar affect and narcissistic personality disorder.
* Pseudobulbar affect
I believe Arthur suffers from emotional incontinence, also known as pseudobulbar affect, caused by a brain injury or neurological ailment. Pseudobulbar affect refers to uncontrollable bursts of laughing, sobbing, or both. These episodes are out of proportion to the patient's current condition or underlying mood and are contradictory or paradoxical. The pseudobulbar effect is most likely caused by severe "Traumatic Brain Injury" (TBI) in Joker. According to several studies, TBI increases the likelihood of personality disorders, mental problems, and substance use concerns (Nabizadeh et al., 2022). The pseudobulbar effect is diagnosed and is expressly acknowledged at one point in the movie. Although his excessive laughter is visible throughout the film, there is no sign that he suffers from weeping incontinence.
* Narcissistic personality disorder
The DSM-5 categorizes...
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