One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: A Psychological Analysis

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a film based within a mental institution that portrays the ineffectiveness of the institution. Using peer-reviewed, empirical research, this paper connects the film to the process of increasing the efficacy of mental health institutions. The findings of the research include how to perpetuate better nurse-patient communication. This can be done by nurses having more positive communication with their patients, and also having sufficient communication with their patients during drug searches. Other research looked at treatment within mental health institutions. These treatments include group therapy, PRN medications, exercise, and electroconvulsive therapy. For group therapy, the results showed that the type …show more content…
The movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest does not emulate this definition whatsoever in its portrayal of an Oregon mental institution. In the film, a man named Randle McMurphy is a prisoner trying to get out of the hard labor that he must do at a prison farm. He was incarcerated for statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. McMurphy personifies that he is mentally ill, and therefore should be spending his punishment in a mental institution, not prison (Douglas and Forman, 1975). His plan works, and they admit him to an Oregon mental institution. Once he is in the mental institution, McMurphy meets Nurse Ratched, the head nurse of their ward. Nurse Ratched is a stern, controlling woman with no empathy for the patients whatsoever. Therefore, McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are at odds from the very beginning. As the movie goes on, McMurphy gets to know the other patients in his ward, and he becomes friends with all of them. Later in the film, McMurphy steals a bus from the hospital and takes himself and the other patients on a fishing trip, both to have some fun and to spite Nurse Ratched. Afterwards, McMurphy learns that there is not a set date that he will get out of the hospital, but that he might have to stay there indefinitely. After realizing this, he plans to escape with the help of a quiet Native American patient that he calls …show more content…
As McMurphy is introduced into the hospital, he recognizes this, which causes him to lash out at Nurse Ratched and defy her demands. It is never explicitly shown how much time the film covers from beginning to end, but it is apparent that the patients within the hospital are not getting better, and are possibly getting worse. It can be argued that one of the main reasons due to them not recovering is an unhealthy relationship between the nurses and their patients, especially between Nurse Ratched and the patients. Within mental hospitals, patients have a group of professionals that contribute to their treatment. However, nurses are one of the most involved professionals with the patients because they are tending to them so

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