Psychological Analysis of a Person from Literature, Film, or Television
For this assignment, you will choose a person with a psychological disorder to analyze from a psychological perspective. The person can be chosen from a book, a film, or a television show.
The person can be a real person or a fictitious person, but he or she must be someone you learned about from a book, film, or TV show. You should use class notes, class discussions, our text book, and additional research from at least one academic journal to support your analysis.
This paper should be 4 to 5 pages long and is worth 100 points. The cover page and the reference page do not count towards the 4 to 5 page length requirement. The body of the paper must be 4 to 5 pages long.
Your paper should include a description and explanation of the following questions. You should have wire to two paragraphs for each one of these questions.
1. What psychological disorder does this person suffer from? Explain the symptoms and give examples of specific behaviors. Also explain if the person is from a novel, film, or TV show and which one. You may use Ch.13 and/or our class notes to help you with your diagnosis.
2. Choose a personality theory from our class notes or our book (Ch.12) to explain the person's personality. Also, include a discussion of at least one defense mechanism.
3. Discuss the issue of nature vs. nurture and how this applies to the person's personality and development of the psychological disorder. It is important that you choose a person from a book, movie, or TV show that provides ample information about the person's childhood, so that you will be able to discuss the issue of nature vs. nurture, so choose wisely.
4. What psychological perspective best explains this person's symptoms and explains their behavior? Choose one and explain. (biological, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, or humanistic)
5. Choose one chapter from our book, and apply the information from this chapter to your analysis of the person you chose. Make it clear what chapter you have chosen to include for this section of your paper.
6. What treatment plan would you recommend to best help this person cope with their mental illness? Use Ch.I.4 on Therapy and our class notes to help you.
7. Connections: Make at least one connection from what you learned through completing this analysis to another component of knowledge. For example, you can conned what you learned to your own personal experience, to another chapter in the book, to another book you have read or film you have seen, to another subject you are studying in school, etc.
8. Critical thinking: This is where you approach the subject with skepticism and you question everything and give a critique.
For example, you can explain if there is any material that you disagree with or agree with and why. You can explain if there were mistakes made by the person you analyze or by their loved ones. You can explain if mistakes were made by the psychological and/or medical profession.
Maybe you want to critically evaluate the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry, psychology, and our society.
Perhaps you want to analyze the role of society or the media in the development of psychological dysfunction. These are only ideas; your critical thinking will depend on the person you choose to analyze, and your own original thoughts.