Girl Interrupted Psychological Analysis

Analysis of Girl Interrupted: Living with Borderline Personality Disorder
Mia Rainone
University of New Hampshire

Analysis of Girl Interrupted: Living with Borderline Personality Disorder
“Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60s. Or maybe I was just a girl, interrupted” (Wick & Mangold, 1999). Girl Interrupted is about an eighteen-year-old girl, Susanna Kaysen, in the 1960’s. She graduated high school and planed to be a writer. Many people looked down on her for not planning to go to college. She had uncertainty of her goals, instability of her self-image
Susanna’s mother is does not know how to deal with her daughter’s illness. Susanna took a cab to the Claymore rather than going with her mother. When the institution’s psychologist discusses Susanna’s diagnoses, her mother became upset and she was not present for Susanna. Also, she was more concerned with what people at the family Christmas party would think if Susanna were not there, rather than having her daughter home for the holiday (Wick & Mangold, 1999). According to the article; Affective behavior during mother–daughter conflict and borderline personality disorder severity across adolescence, adolescent girls show improvement with symptoms of borderline personality disorder when their mother supplies commutative, supportive behavior to the daughter. Borderline personality disorder was triggered in Susanna due to her mother’s inability to be supportive. Her mother’s behavior negatively influences her, which is supported by the information in this article. The articles purpose is to record how an adolescent’s borderline personality disorder is shaped and maintained with certain parent-child interactions. For three consecutive years, 15-17 year old adolescent girls report their symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Mothers and daughters complete questioners that are designed to produce conflict and negative emotion. The Revised Interactional Dimensions
There can be harmful affects to patients once they are labeled with a psychological disorder (Schacter, Gilbert, & Wegner, 2013). Once she was at the mental institution her behavior worsened. She met people with real psychological disorders and some cases were much more severe than her own. Being in the institution and being labeled with a psychological disorder caused her to act out. Susanna would not get out of bed for a while, so one of the nurses, Valerie, picked her up and dropped her in a cold bathtub. Susanna started to act out, and Valerie said “you are not crazy” (Wick & Mangold, 1999) and Susanna questioned her. Valerie told her she is just a young girl, driving herself crazy. This upset Susanna and she began to say hurtful words and purposely acted ‘crazy’ since that is what she thought she was. Valerie sees potential in Susanna to live a normal, happy life outside of the mental institution but feels she is just throwing it away (Wick & Mangold, 1999). Susanna was acting this way because her label affected her. She has been labeled with a psychological disorder, put in an institution, and all of her new friends have severe disorders. She feels no one understands her and feels hopeless, so she succumbs to what she thinks people expect of her as a ‘crazy’