Schizophrenia In The Film Benny And Joon

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects the mind and that often comprises symptoms like disorganized speech, catatonic behavior and hallucinations. Joon from the movie, “Benny and Joon” exhibits most of these behaviors. Joon is a white female around her 20s that lives with her brother in his home. Joon doesn’t work or has a professional working status, instead she stays most of her time in her home. Joon doesn’t display other health problems aside from her mental disorder, and also we do not know much of her own family mental history. The only glimpse that we have about her family or her childhood is that she got to witness, along with her brother, their parent’s death. There is also not index of a drug or an alcohol history, aside
She also has difficulty coping with other people. She has sudden outbursts and sudden acts of rage to anyone who interrupts with her intense routine. For example, at min 5 of the movie, she throws her housekeeper Mrs. Slims because she like give fits of semiprecious metaphor and that also she like to move things. Her reaction toward her housekeepers describe one of the first symptoms of schizophrenia, catatonic behavior. Finally, some of her life difficulties appear to root from her own mental illness. She dislike the idea of being sent to a group home or being treated as a mental disorder patient.
Joon also illustrates many of the symptoms of a schizophrenic or an autistic patient. For example, she displays catatonic behavior and incoherent speech. She also has sudden outburst of irrational behavior and hallucinations and finally she is also has very delusional and irrational thinking. Most of the symptoms that Joon displays in the movie, however, are catatonic behavior and incoherent speech, while rarely displaying maniac schizophrenic episodes. For instance, at min 14:23 of the movie, when Bennie is playing with his friends and they address the housekeeping
Garvey plans for Joon falls under the cognitive branch. A cognitive behavior approach works by changing maladaptive thinking and behavior. Most therapists use cognitive behavior approach to patients suffering from depression, anxiety and psychosis. Unlike a psychoanalytic approach, this technique acknowledges that there are behavior that cannot be controlled by rational thinking and that a change in the environment will help a person’s alter their behavior and thinking to external and internal stimulus. This is different from a psychoanalytic approach, where therapists try to understand unconscious behavior to later diagnose its patient. In the movie, “Bennie and Joon”, the therapy that Dr. Garvey proposes falls on the cognitive behavior approach. For example, at min of the movie, Dr. Garvey explains to Benny that a group house will be the best for Joon since she will learn to form both interpersonal relationships and work under the guidance of clinicians. And at min, she retaliates that a secure and controlling environment will be effective for Joon’s mental illness. It is evident, that Dr. Garvey seeks to treat Joon’s mental disorder by changing her exposure to her previous environment, with the hope that this will also alter her behavior and her attitudes to distinct stimuli. Though, Joon eventually chooses to stay with Sam in their own apartment, it is clear that a caring and controlling environment help Joon with her disorder. But,