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Nora Helmer: A Case Study

Introduction:​ Nora Helmer has been observed in her home over the course of 3 days where she

was faced with many challenges and conflicts to see how she behaves under pressure. From this,

we have formed 3 diagnoses: General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Narcissistic Personality

Disorder (NPD), and Immature Personality Disorder (IPD).

Methods:​ Nora was placed in a closed environment with her husband Mr. Helmer and her close

friend Dr. Rank. We introduced two individuals, previous confidante Mr. Krogstad and

childhood friend Mrs. Linde, in hopes of increasing Nora’s stress to determine how she performs

under pressure. The results were analyzed by observing Nora’s behavior and compiled in a

graph.

Results:

Figure 1: Conflict vs. Nora’s Stress

Figure 1: As conflict increases, so does Nora’s stress. We can see here that Nora does not have a

good way of handling stress.

Discussion:​ Nora’s anxiety was observed by posing many conflicts over this 3 day period,

including Mr. Krogstad blackmailing her and Dr. Rank professing his love. This concern of

anxiety was brought up in this study due to the high expectations imposed on her by Mr. Helmer.
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Nora did not process this anxiety in a healthy way, and was found to have thoughts worse than

“leaving house and home” (Ibsen, 1129). These suicidal thoughts were a clear indicator that

Nora’s brain cannot process stress sufficiently. As for the root of her anxiety, we found that

much of her stress was caused by her own husband, Mr. Helmer. Mr. Krogstad only had power

over Nora to blackmail her because she received money from him to pay for Mr. Helmer’s

“recovery” trip. This power Helmer displays over Nora caused her to make risks and sacrifices.

When Nora is blackmailed by Mr. Krogstad, Nora’s first concern is Mr. Helmer finding out and

tells her children to tell no one of Krogstad’s visit, “Not even Daddy” (Ibsen, 1113).

Nora was also initially diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). This was

due to Nora’s manipulation of Torvald. We initially had sympathy for Nora because of her