Borderline Personality Disorder In The Movie Momie

In the movie Mommie Dearest, actress Joan Crawford slowly slips into madness by showing several examples of each disorder throughout the movie. The four disorders I will be comparing are borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and obsessive personality disorder. All of these disorders and their symptoms heavily affected and influenced Joan and everyone around her. For example, her daughter Christina grew up with a mother that insisted that everything was done her way or no way at all. Crawford desperately wanted to give her two adopted children all her love and affection but wasn’t quite ready to handle every aspect of motherhood. The first disorder she possessed was borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder. According to Rathus in his published Psychology Principles in Practice (2010) “Instability in mood, chaotic personal relationships, and a disturbed …show more content…
Rathus author of Psychology Principles & Practices refers to obsessive compulsive disorder as unwanted thoughts and mental images that occur in repetition in one’s mind (2010). The movie opens as Joan starts getting ready for a day of filming. You instantly notice how anal she becomes about getting every last speck of dirt off herself. She brutally scrubs herself clean before she gets into the shower. Finally, when she felt clean enough she was ready to start her day. Another example is when Joan and her maids were scrubbing her tiles floors clean. Everything looked beautiful and spotless until Joan finds something out of place which happened to be under the potted plant. Joan began scrubbing the infected spot herself while continued to say “Oh I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the dirt.” These are obvious examples of obsessive compulsive disorder because she keeps imagining all the dirt accumulating everywhere and she can’t help but to make sure it’s all