The Beaver Essay On Depression

The 2011 film, The Beaver, depicts Walter Black and his personal struggles with depression, his marriage, his family, and his job. At his lowest point after a failed suicide attempt, he meets The Beaver and together they attempt to repair the relationships in his life. While using The Beaver exclusively to communicate helps him repair many of his past shortcomings, Walter struggles to incorporate the improvements into his solitary self. The inability to remove The Beaver from his life leads to a multitude of additional relationship problems that result in self-mutilation and a rapid descent back to his initial depressed state. This paper will examine Walter Black’s mental status, the differential diagnoses, and the diagnosis of major depressive …show more content…
A beaver dam can appear overnight; it can be beneficial acting as a natural filter, or it can cause great destruction with flooding or oversaturation of areas leaving them unstable. In the film, The Beaver, Walter Black relies on a beaver puppet to change the course of his life. Initially, he reaps wonderful benefits, but ultimately it causes great destruction in his life.
Differential …show more content…
Depression, mania, delusions are the key symptoms that Walter presents. As the film states, Walter has been diagnosed and living with depression for quite some time. After reviewing all of the signs, symptoms, and criteria, the conclusive diagnosis for Walter Black is major depressive disorder (MDD) with mixed and psychotic features comorbid with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Walter’s depression has been the root of most of his problems. At one point in the film, Walter’s youngest son asks about the grandpa they visit in the cemetery and asks what happened to him. Walter, even with The Beaver, cannot address the topic and his wife speaks up to say that Grandpa “got very sad and had an accident” alluding to depression and suicide. Genetically if his father had depression, Walter would have a higher risk and with the potential exposure to suicide, he would also be at a higher risk to attempt suicide. Prior to meeting The Beaver, Walter was depressed all day every day, slept excessively, had lost interest and motivation in all areas of his life, could not run his company effectively, and attempted suicide. He displayed textbook MDD criteria until his encounter with The Beaver. Afterwards, signs of mania appeared. His interest and motivation increased, his mood and self-esteem surged, he saved his company by creating an unconventional toy that flies off the shelves, and his depression only makes brief