Alex Chaput
0810758
The movie Reign Over Me is about a man named Charlie Fineman. Charlie used to be a practicing dentist. His whole life was turned upside down when he lost his wife and three daughters in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. One day while Charlie is on the street his old roommate from college, Allen Johnson, sees him and tries yelling for him, but Charlie does not stop. Allen then seems like he knows that something is wrong with Charlie and wants to help. In this movie it is clear to see that Charlie is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is what would go on Axis 1 of the multi-axial system. For this diagnosis he needs to have 6 or more symptoms from 3 different areas. These areas are re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal. He has been suffering for over 1 month and is severely distressed and impaired. The traumatic event that Charlie was exposed to was his family dying in the plane crash of 9/11. This event has left him extremely helpless and he has times of horror when he thinks about what has happened. While going about his daily life he acts as if he doesn’t remember any of the tragedy that occurred. This would be one of the avoidance symptoms. Another of these symptoms would be that he avoids his late wife’s parents as they remind him of his family. The third would be his loss of interest in activities. He used to be a practicing dentist, but now lives off of money from the government. At all times in this movie Charlie has his headphones in order to drown out any thought or mention of his family. Charlie has a breakdown at one point in the movie. It seems as if he has a flashback of his family in his house. These thoughts and memories are recurrent and intrusive which applies to his re-experiencing symptoms. Another of these is when he shows very intense distress in his court appearance when showed pictures of his family. He then has to be escorted from the courtroom. For his