Girl Interrupted - Movie Review Example

Girl Interrupted is a story told by Suzanna Kay son who has been on a locked psyche unit for females for almost two years. She is a bright teenager of 18 when she signs herself in on the suggestion of a family friend and psychiatrist. The story is set in the 60's when it was truly an embarrassment to have this kind of illness and Suzanna goes to the hospital alone, in the back of a cab. Suzanna has already had many problems in her life. She does not get along with her parents, she has had an affair with a high school teacher and contrary to what was alright for a girl in that day and age, she has decided to "write".

The ward she is on seems almost to be a dorm. There are several other young women there, some are silly and some are angry but is this not the same elsewhere The truth of the situation occurs when any small thing changes to set off these women and then chaos erupts and everyone seems different than they did just a few minutes before. The head nurse is Whoopie Goldberg and she has previously worked for a State institution and believes this job is a "piece of cake" in comparison. She, however, has a great deal of compassion for these women though she also runs the unit with a needed strong hand.

Treatment for misbehaving is an ice bath and many of the nurses use the "there is not going to be any trouble is there" to be sure the patients take their medications etc. There is also, of course, four point restraints. Not to many of these kinds of treatments are used today but seclusion rooms are still prominent on most lock ups. These rooms are padded on all four walls, the ceiling and the floor and you are placed there to do away with you hostility. Suzanna is diagnosed by her psychiatrist as a borderline personality disorder In today's DSM IV her symptoms would seem to match this disorder which is Borderlin epersonality disorder, 301.83. It actually is difficult to see Suzanna as having any psychiatric disorder and she is the kind of patient that is difficult to miss when admitted with problems to the medical surgical floor.

Suzanna took a bottle of aspirin and drank an bottle of alcohol but for most of the movies states it was an accident and she did not mean to kill herself, "she had a headache." DSMIV lists the main symptoms of personality disorder as revolving around unstable relationships, a poor negative sense of self, inconsistent moods, and significant impulsivity. They have an intense fear of abandonment and usually push people away so they cannot be abandoned. They become overly involved and very attached to various people (DSM IV) Suzanna does meet all of these symptoms and like she says it is a wavy line because she seems normal.

We would not admit her to a locked psyche unit today but we might regularly run into her in clinics and other healthcare facilities and as nurses, have a need to understand that this can be a problem personality and may be why these people are alone. The prognosis here is good if they attend treatment and begin to understand that they are not "crazy" but need to understand their disease. Suzanna does end up being able to go home and has gained a great insight not only into her own illness but into the illnesses of so many of the other patients on the unit.

Lisa, on the other hand is what in the days the movie was placed would have