black swan and psychological disorders

Disorders

I believe that Nina Sayers has generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, and brief psychotic disorder

Disorders

Criteria

The criteria that Nina meets for these disorders are 1) OCD: compulsions cause her distress 2) GAD: has difficulty concentrating; anxiety or worry causes distress 3) Brief psychotic disorder: hallucinations; less than 1 month (I'm assuming the movie may take place over a few weeks-a month)

Criteria

Symptoms

Nina scratches her skin, pulls back skin around nails, and picks at nails which fall under OCD and skin picking and body focused repetitive behaviors. I also wanted to note when she had a hallucination of becoming the black swan she pulled a feather out of her back.

Symptoms

While auditioning, Nina shows signs of a generalized anxiety disorder. She became easily distracted when presented with the pressure of the situation. The worry of getting the role and embodying the role once she has it causes her distress which can be seen in her actions and movements.

Multiple times throughout the film, Nina sees herself in front of her or as someone else. When she comes home she sees the pictures / drawings of herself staring at her. She also seems to become the black swan with growing the wings and the body, which isn't realistic. She also imagines situations that didn't really happen such as her and Lily going to Nina's apartment. These are all examples of hallucinations she had. She becomes late to rehearsals and seems unorganized

Factors

Reasons why I beleive Nina is experiencing these symptoms and disorders is because of her perfectionism. Along with her overbearing mother, who also seems to treat her like a child, and lives through her.

Factors

I think that Nina Sayers should recieve CBT to help with her anxiety, and OCD and those behaviors that come with that, and it will also help her thinking behaviors and patterns (her perfectionalism)

I would suggest Nina to take antidepressants (for anxiety and OCD) and an antipsychotic (because of her brief psychotic disorder)

The impact of Nina's mental disorders affected her mother. Nina goes against her mom and at one point smashes her hand in the door.

Impact and Life

As someone who deals and struggles with body focused repetitive behaviors, I think living with OCD would be frustrating and embarassing. As seen in the film, when Nina's mother sees her scratched skin she becomes scared for Nina/mad with her because it's not something that socially acceptable to do.

I think living with schizophrenia would be confusing and frustrating to deal with as well. You imagine something happening but it didn't really happen and leaves you confused and frustrated not knowing the real story.

I think GAD and OCD in this film were realistically portrayed. I really appreciate this film for the symptoms of OCD that they showed because I've never really seen that in other characters before.

Portrayal

I think the brief psychotic disorder also had a good portrayal because alongside Nina's hallucinations she also had very disorganized behavior. "The presence of at least one positive psychotic symptom such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, or disorganized or catatonic behavior. Establishing that the symptoms have not been present for less than one day or more than one month" (NCBI Bookshelf). I think that since Nina fits 2 of those symptoms plus the time frame that it's an accurate portrayal.