1.There are multiple mental illnesses portrayed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as the setting for the story is a mental institution. The narrator is a large Native American who feigns deaf and dumbness. This character is an excellent study in the evolution of a mentally ill individual along the path of finding a semblance of normalcy, although the phenomenon is the result of interactions with a decidedly psychopathic or sociopathic man, McMurphy, played by Jack Nicholson. Nicholson connives to be placed in a mental institution to avoid jail and throughout his antics we are offered an internal view of a form of mental illness more difficult to diagnose - psycho &/or sociopathy. The terms have been used interchangeably and even experts disagree
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McMurphy was required to participate in group talk therapy as one form of treatment for his mental/social illness. However, one can only question the effectiveness of this when the group was extremely dysfunctional as was the therapist or nurse conducting the sessions. Instead, it was obvious they were designed to instigate further fear and intimidation, and a sense of self- doubt. The other treatment protocol was pharmaceutical and this was evident in large doses, with pills of some form or another being dispensed regularly throughout the film. It was, in fact, an important part of the movie’s message, which aimed to explain that hospitals have turned to drug therapy as a form of treatment to dull the underlying problems. Both pharmaceutical and talk therapy treatment are valid options for treating the sociopath/psychopath (King, 2011). However, they are much more sophisticated and wielded with greater expertise than at the time of this film’s production in 1975. It is germane to note that mandated psychotherapy is not individually driven and may be less successful as was evident in the movie with …show more content…
One expert in the subject of psychopathy offers a full explanation of its biological basis. It is suggested that amygdala dysfunction is a key neural system that is associated with psychopathy (Blair et al., 1999). Neuroimaging studies have confirmed this. Further, there is evidence the frontal cortex could be dysfunctional (Soderstrom et al., 2000). They found that “psychopathy was associated with an increased ratio between the dopamine metabolite HVA and the serotonin metabolite 5-HIAA. This increased ratio is thought to be an indicator of impaired serotonergic regulation of dopamine activity, which results in the disinhibition of aggressive impulses” (p.
McMurphy was required to participate in group talk therapy as one form of treatment for his mental/social illness. However, one can only question the effectiveness of this when the group was extremely dysfunctional as was the therapist or nurse conducting the sessions. Instead, it was obvious they were designed to instigate further fear and intimidation, and a sense of self- doubt. The other treatment protocol was pharmaceutical and this was evident in large doses, with pills of some form or another being dispensed regularly throughout the film. It was, in fact, an important part of the movie’s message, which aimed to explain that hospitals have turned to drug therapy as a form of treatment to dull the underlying problems. Both pharmaceutical and talk therapy treatment are valid options for treating the sociopath/psychopath (King, 2011). However, they are much more sophisticated and wielded with greater expertise than at the time of this film’s production in 1975. It is germane to note that mandated psychotherapy is not individually driven and may be less successful as was evident in the movie with …show more content…
One expert in the subject of psychopathy offers a full explanation of its biological basis. It is suggested that amygdala dysfunction is a key neural system that is associated with psychopathy (Blair et al., 1999). Neuroimaging studies have confirmed this. Further, there is evidence the frontal cortex could be dysfunctional (Soderstrom et al., 2000). They found that “psychopathy was associated with an increased ratio between the dopamine metabolite HVA and the serotonin metabolite 5-HIAA. This increased ratio is thought to be an indicator of impaired serotonergic regulation of dopamine activity, which results in the disinhibition of aggressive impulses” (p.