Joan Crawford's Personality Disorders

The Crash Reel is a documentary that was created in 2013 and directed by Lucy Walker. It covers the life of Kevin Pearce, a legendary snowboarder. The documentary focuses on the life changing accident that occurred to Kevin in Park City, Utah while training for the Olympics trials. The feature shows Kevin’s life and his recovery process after the horrifying incident. In the film, we see Kevin battle for his life with the support from his family and friends.

Psychological disorders are very real and present in many people we come in contact with daily, however, are very rarely talked about. Learning about these disorders can help us to understand others and ourselves better by telling us why we do and think the things we do. One effective way that we can observe and learn about psychological disorders is through movies. “Mommie Dearest” was directed by Frank Perry. It is centered around the actress Joan Crawford, who suffered from various psychological disorders. Joan’s daughter, Christina, wrote a book about her mother and her many problems and it was later turned into a movie. It is very effective to use movie analysis as a way of learning, especially in psychology, because it provides a great way to observe without distractions. When you’re looking at disorders, it’s difficult to find a person who has many of these disorders and will allow you to observe them. Psychological disorders can be split into two major groups, personality disorders and mood disorders. Personality disorders are patterns of traits that can get in the way of your social or work life and may interrupt the individual’s normal lifestyle. Mood disorders are inconsistent and unreliable changes in mood by the affected individual. (Rathus, 1998). With all of this being said, it brings me to my point that I will be talking about for the rest of this essay. Joan Crawford demonstrates the personality disorders of histrionic, narcissism, and OCPD. When it comes to mood disorders, Joan demonstrates bipolar disorder.

Throughout life, people will meet others who are different from them. People have different backgrounds, ethnicities, lifestyles, etc. Everyone is unique in their own way. In some situations, people will act very different, according to their personality. Some people are not patient and will react angrily to certain things, while others will act calmly. For example, a person with a narcissistic personality disorder, will think that they always need attention. They also may be preoccupied with fantasies of their own success, power, intelligence, or beauty. Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is someone who looks as if she has this

In the 1995 film Clueless, which is loosely based on Jane Austen’s Emma, shows the lives of stereotypical high school teens. This movie entails many interpersonal communication concepts. This movie included interpersonal concepts such as stereotypes, non-verbal communication, self-concept, interpersonal conflict, persuasion, verbal aggression, intercultural communication, perception, and physical appearance.

One personality disorder Joan Crawford demonstrated was bipolar. This disorder can be defined as periods of reckless behavior and hyperactivity that can change at any given second (Rathus, 2010). There are several occasions throughout the movie that show Joan suffering through this disorder, for example one moment she would be a cheerful, smiling mom and at a drop of a hat, it would change for the worst making her become an angry and aggressive toward her child Christina. This can be seen when Joan is kissing her sweet daughter Christina goodnight, and then looks through the closet where she finds a dress hung by a wire hanger. Joan’s behavior quickly becomes elevated, ripping all of the clothes and hangers out of the closet, yelling at Christina, which then leads Joan to beat her daughter with the hanger. Another example is in the scene

In the film Clueless (1995), there is a scene when Cherilyn “Cher” walks from the street to her house, and she is talking to herself in her head about all Josh, her friend Tai and other guys. Two-Factory Theory of Emotion, a two-step process which the individuals feeling physiologically aroused and they try to find the right explanation for the situation (Aronson, Wilson, and Akert, 2013), is showing in this scene because Cher goes from an ambiguous stage about Josh to a conclusion that she loves Josh. At first, Cher is having negative attitude about Josh, but as her complaints going on, she tries to find the right explanation to her feeling. In this situation, Cher feel uneasy about herself as to why she keeps thinking about Josh, even though she thinks that he is a like a “slug” that hanging around her house. At the end, she admits to herself that she stresses about all the time Josh because she is in love with him

At the beginning of the film it opens up to a scene of Joan’s daily morning routine and how she follows every step precisely. This is a prime example of obsessive-compulsive which is “inflexibility, and fixation on rules, procedures and orderliness” (Rathus, 2010, p. 526). Obsessive-compulsive disorder is shown again when Joan discovers a wire hanger in Christina’s closet, and Joan precedes to throw all her daughter’s clothing to the ground and spanks Christina with the hanger. Then, while she has Christina clean up her clothing a dispose of the wire hanger Joan sits on the child’s bathroom floor and screams about how filthy it is and forces Christina to clean that as well. One scene shows just how much the obsessive-compulsive disorder is in charge of Joan’s life, but this is not the only one narcissistic is another strong disorder Joan Crawford contains. The film projects a part where Christina and Joan are swimming in the pool and racing each other back and forth. No matter how much of a head-start Joan gives Christina, Joan continues to beat her daughter, and Joan does not stop even if Christina is exhausted. This shows the lack of empathy that is required in the narcissistic personality disorder because she will not let Christina rest or win (Rathus, 2010). Joan also shows this in the final scenes of the movie in her will and she does not leave any of the money to any of her children, which also shows the lack of empathy she has for her

There were over three instances where you could see Joan’s disorders take control and make her go crazy. Joan had show 3 for sure types of disorders which were OCD, Histrionic disorder, and Dependent disorder. Joan had to have everything in her house perfect and clean. Joan having O.C.D. really did have a huge impact on her children's lives because it caused her to lose her temper if they did something wrong or if they got dirty. Joan showed that she had a Histrionic Disorder because her emotions would change in a second from happiness to anger.

They put it in their heads that something is always wrong with their lives; these women are psychotic. Golden describes her as “she’s the women you see on those made for TV movies starring Barry Bostwick

Throughout the time watching the movie “Mommie Dearest”, it was obvious from the beginning to the end that Joan Crawford had a couple of different mental issues. Originating with her very controlling personality, ways of manipulation, going into a mania without any provoking, and to the point of obsessive cleaning. With the information we gathered from her different behaviors portrayed in the movie, as well as guidelines in the DSM-V and information from our mental health textbook, we concluded that Joan Crawford meets the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder propensities regarding the cleanliness and how perfection was of utmost importance to her. The criteria Joan meets in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is defined by both obsession and compulsion as being “recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and unwanted, and that in most individuals cause marked anxiety or distress” and “repetitive behaviors (e.g. hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (e.g. praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly” (Townsend & Morgan, 2017).

Joan thinks that she is the best actress in the world and no one is better than her. Another symptom of narcissistic behavior is being in love with the way things look not how they feel. When the Crawford family gets interviewed on the radio during Christmas Joan acts like her family is the perfect American family and she always wants her fans to think her children give all their other presents to children in need. She wants her family to look perfect for the media. It may look perfect but nobody knows what the children are going through and what they are feeling (Koontz & O'Neill

Richard has to make the decision to stay with his dad or mom. To get Richard to stay with him, he gives him a nickel showing him that he will be able to eat and won’t have to be hungry anymore. The nickel isn 't enough to support yourself on, and Richard will still have to go out on his own and buy food. Wright is showing the us how low his father will go in order to “win” Richard. Richard wants is a guardian and caregiver, a man with money.

The movie Falling Down portrays many examples of the movie reflecting, influencing, and changing society. The movie reflects society's many flaws such as inflation of prices and unneeded budget spending. The movie also influences others to point out society’s flaws by using force. Finally, the movie changes society by showing the movie in the point of view of a person that is classified as a realist.

I am studying the Killing Joke so I can understand the reason people change after an extra ordinary event takes place that affects them physically and psychologically in order to help readers understand why one bad day changes everything.

This summer, I worked with a company in Athens, Georgia that focuses on men’s fashion products, specifically “Classic-tied” bow ties. Classic City Cotton LLC is a recent start up company that entered the southern clothing market in 2014. As a corporation, Classic City Cotton focuses on creating a viable relationship with its customers and retail partners. They strive to become a reliable company for their customers and surrounding community. Classic City Cotton works directly with UGA Hero’s, and gives a portion of their sales to the organization to help provide mentors for children affected with HIV/AID’s. When I began working with the company, their short-term goal was to be carried in 100 retail stores. Their