Psychological Analysis of Girl Interrupted

Girl interrupted is about of girl named Suzanna who has been diagnosed with borderline personality
disorder in the 1960s. She is committed to a mental hospital where she becomes friends with
a sociopath and is roommates with a pathological liar. The main focus of this paper will be the
symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment that Suzanna goes through in the movie.

Borderline personality disorder is characterized by intense shifts in mood lasting only a few hours at
a time. This is often accompanied by periods of intense aggression, substance abuse, and self-
injurious behaviors such as cutting, casual sex or binge eating. People with borderline personality
disorder will sometimes attempt suicide impulsively in periods of extreme depression or anger. Often
times people with borderline personality disorder feel extremely bored, empty, mistreated and/or
alone. Intense feelings of loneliness usually are followed by frantic efforts to avoid being alone
(NIMH, 2008). 

Suzanna is initially institutionalized for taking a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka. She claims
that she was not trying to kill herself, but only get rid of a headache. While in the hospital she had
severe bruises on her hands and stated that she had no bones in her hand. People with borderline
personality disorder often have suicide attempts and substance abuse in their history along with self-
mutilation. Susannah claimed that she had no bones in her hand. This could be considered self-
mutilation, but the "no bones in her hand" might suggest a delusional disorder and does not
necessarily fall in line with borderline personality disorder.

Suzanna often exhibits spontaneous damaging behavior that is mainly sexual. Dangerous sexual
activity includes sex with a married man, sex with two people the same day, and with another
individual. Other spontaneous behaviors include breaking out of the hospital, stealing her medical
files, and not taking medication. She also aids in drugging a nurse and steals a guitar from the art
room to help cheer up another patient. Spontaneous dangerous behavior is one of the major signs of
borderline personality disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). 

Suzanna has grown up in an unstable environment and although physical abuse is observed the
mother is highly unstable in mood shifting. The father is controlling and angry and inappropriately
aggressive in many situations. There is not enough information to support a borderline diagnosis for
either patient, but it is known that if someone has a guardian with borderline personality disorder is
much more likely to develop it themselves (Mayo Clinic, 2008).

Suzanna has mystical beliefs about her symptoms and diagnosis, the major example being the bones
in her hand disappearing and then reappearing. She often seeks to be alone. Shows many social
anxieties around people and had a lack of close friends on outside of the hospital. These symptoms
might point to a comorbid diagnosis with schizotypal personality disorder. 

Contradictions to the possible schizotypal personality disorder would include that she is sometimes
the "life of the party" which falls in line more with borderlines. She also desperately seeks male
attention leading to her promiscuous sexual behavior that goes against the seeking of complete
isolation often exhibited by others with scizotypal personality disorder. Her social anxieties are not
clear in the movie and it is unclear whether they are a product of negative feelings about her or
whether she has paranoid fears. 

Despite the schizotypal possibility it is more likely that she has borderline personality disorder. This
is because she clearly exhibits the majority of the signs of someone with borderline personality
disorder including self destructive behavior, feelings of emptiness, intense shifts in mood lasting only
a short period of time, consistent suicide ideation, feelings of "rejection and not fitting in." Even the
schizotypal symptoms can be explained by borderline personality disorder. People with borderline
personality disorder often have odd thinking, quasipsychosis, and unusual perceptions. 

Psychologists often are reluctant to give borderline diagnosis because people with the disorder often
encompass many symptoms from many axis 1 disorders in the DSM. A possible reason for this
overlap is the ambiguity within the DSM low or unstable mood is not a specific term as well as, the
quantifying of symptoms to arrive at a diagnosis that leads to borderline personality disorder leaving
it too broad and open for interpretation to receive a clinical diagnosis (Paris, 2008).

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