Abnormal Psychology in the Movies

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Abnormal Psychology in the Movies

For your final project you will be writing a paper in APA format. (See details below.) Your paper should be approximately 4-5 pages or 1200-1500 words. Your paper will focus on the main character of one of the movies listed below. Each character suffers from a particular mental illness (or illnesses) covered in this course.

It is your responsibility to find a way to watch one of those movies.

Please post your movie choice in the “Final Project Movie Selection” discussion forum before the end of week 1.

After watching your selected movie, it’s time to focus on the writing portion of this assignment. The goal of your paper is to analyze the main character and his or her abnormal psychology.

Please utilize the following headers within your paper:

  1. Introduction: Introduce the character you are writing on and summarize the plot
  2. Symptoms & Diagnosis: What specific symptoms did the character experience in the movie? What diagnosis would you give them?
  3. Nature or Nurture: Was the character’s mental illness a result of biological or environmental influences? Explain.
  4. Treatment: What type of treatment would you recommend for the character? Be specific.
  5. Prognosis: Good or bad? Why?
  6. Conclusion: Summarize your main points and reflect. Did you enjoy the movie you selected? Did the movie teach you anything you didn’t know already about mental illness? Was it a realistic portrayal of mental illness?

I would like you to reference at least three sources in this paper. The textbook may be one of your sources.

**Be sure to review the grading grid so that you will be aware of how your paper will be graded. This should also serve as a guide to help you remember to include all of the important elements in the paper. Most importantly, DO NOT PLAGIARIZE YOUR WORK!!! Write in your own words and when in doubt–CITE! 🙂 Plagiarized work will result in an instant zero for the paper. Do not go to a website, copy and then paste and expect it to count as your paper. Your paper will be scanned for plagiarism so do not make this error.

Answer preview

“Rain Man” is a famous film produced in 1988 by Mark Johnson and directed by Barry Levinson. The main characters are Charlie Babbit and his brother Raymond. Raymond is the character of focus who suffers from autism. Due to his autistic condition, Raymond had developed a savant syndrome. He had to adhere to extremely strict daily routines such as watching Judge Wapner on TV and sleeping at 11:00 PM that was difficult for him to abruptly stop (Babbitt, 2016).  Raymond also had a superb recall or eidetic memories that enable him to recall images and events precisely after seeing them briefly or for once. Charlie had lived all his life without knowing that he had another brother until his father died. His father was a wealthy man and left his over $3 million estate to the mental institution where Raymond was living and a 1949 Buick Roadmaster car to Charlie (Babbitt, 2016).  After investigations, Charlie discovered that he had another mentally challenged brother who received most of his father’s wealth. He was upset and went to the institution where he abducted him and took him to a hotel. He started demanding half of the estate for Raymond to be returned into the institution, something that Raymond’s doctor Dr. Gerald Bruner refused. He tried to make Raymond jailed to have control of the estate with no success.  Susanna, Charlie’s girlfriend, was not pleased with how Charlie was treating his brother, and therefore she decided to leave Charlie for a while.(1346words)