Defining Psychological Disorders in a Movie

In the movie, “Shutter Island,” I recognized two possible disorders, Delusional Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Although this movie is not listed in Delusional Disorder category, I see some symptoms associated with this disorder. According to the DSM4-TR, Delusional Disorder involves non-bizarre (real life situations) delusions for at least a month’s duration, the disturbance is not due to the effects of medication,and hallucinations may be present if they’re related to theme. In the movie a man is clearly suffering from psychological issues because he has flashbacks of the war and hallucinations of a woman and dead children. He is an ex solider and U.S Marshal whose wife had psychological issues of her own, and murdered their three children. As a result of that, he murdered his wife, and he has been living at a mental facility for prisoners for the past 24 months. He has created a persona, who is a U.S. Marshal investigating the disappearance of a patient and that’s his reason he is there. In the end, it turns out the doctors were playing along with this persona with hopes of bringing him back to reality. The truth is finally presented to him, and it turns out the children are his own, and his daughter is the child asking him why he didn’t save them. He also suffered from Posttraumatic Stress disorder from both the war and finding his children dead in the lake. According to DSM4-TR, he is suffering from frequent recollection of the event, dreams, feeling detachment from others, and acting or feeling and if the traumatic even were