Schizophrenia & PTSD in Shutter Island - Hughes

Psychology Project

1. Shutter Island Schizophrenia and PTSD *Spoilers ahead*

2. Psychology Basis Schizophrenia: A mental disorder where people lose touch with reality Distorted perception, thoughts, and Behavior Inappropriate emotions and reactions Confusion Hallucinations and Delusions are common In Shutter Island they show the main character suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia and psychosis as he believes the hospital staff are out to get him and he has no recollection of his previous life as a patient of the hospital

3. Psychology Basis Cont. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Anxiety disorder following a traumatic event Often reliving the event in dreams or thoughts Irritability, hyperawareness, and insomnia

4. Shutter Island Plot *This plot synopsis is kind of long but necessary to explain the movies premise. The film begins in 1954 with two U.S. Marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) traveling to a psychiatric hospital on Shutter Island in Boston Harbor to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients, Rachel Solando. They are trapped on the island by a storm and Teddy believes they are being stalked by the hospital staff who are performing experiments on the patients. Teddy begins to have flashbacks to his time in World War II and to the murder of his wife by a man called Laeddis .

5. Shutter Island Plot Cont. He soon believes his wife's killer is on the island and his partner has been kidnapped. He breaks into a restricted light house where he belives Chuck is being held and instead finds that the head psychiatric doctor John Cawley (Ben Kingsley) is calmly waiting for him. He explains that Teddy killed his wife after she killed their children and has been a patient at the hospital for some time. His “partner” is a doctor at the hospital, and this investigation was an experiment to help break his paranoid delusions and schizophrenia as he has become violent.

6. Shutter Island Plot Cont. He has suffered several hallucinations during his time at the hospital including finding and talking to the missing patient even though she never existed as well as a hallucination of his wife's fictional killer Laeddis talking to him from a cell. He begins to accept his true reality but at the last moment reverts to his delusion that he is a U.S. Marshal investigating to find the lost patient and the hospital staff is out to get him.

7. Connection to Psychology We first see the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as Teddy relives his time in World War II and his part in the liberation of the concentration camp Dachau. We also see the symptoms of PTSD as he dreams of the death of his wife some years previous and begins to appear increasingly irritable as he investigates.

8. Connection to Psychology He shows symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia as he begins believing that the hospital staff is out to get him even though his partner works for the hospital. Teddy says “I gotta get off this rock, Chuck. Get back to the mainland. Whatever the hell's going on here, it's bad. Don't worry, partner, they're not gonna catch us.”

9. Connection to Psychology He shows more symptoms as he hallucinates speaking to the escaped prisoner Rachel Solando. Teddy says “I could come get you, get, get you off this island.” Rachel then says “Haven't you heard a word I've said? The only way off the island is the ferry, and they control it. You'll never leave here.” This whole dialogue is imagined as he is the missing patient and Rachel Solando never existed.

10. Validity Shutter island displays many of the symptoms of schizophrenia correctly such as the paranoid delusions that occur as well as the hallucinations that take place with the main character Teddy Daniels and different fake patients. It also shows many parts of PTSD correctly such as the reliving of the traumatic event (the war and the killing of his wife) and increased irritability and alertness. It is a little over the top as it is a horror/thriller movie but shows many parts of these mental disorders correctly.

11. References The Everything Psychology Book 2 nd Edition Wikipedia “Shutter Island (Film)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_Island_(film) Quotes.Net (Shutter Island quotes) https://www.quotes.net/movies/shutter_island_140646