Sybil

The film Sybil is one of the powerful portrayals of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which was filmed based on a young woman’s true story. The young women, Sybil who went through a terribly traumatic childhood went to develop a total of 16 personalities, and each of her personalities adopt different life history, self-image, name, voice and movement style. The film Sybil has reminded me a recent film called Split (2016) that features a man with diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. Many movies nowadays love to exaggerate the symptoms of mental illness for dramatic effects, and the film Split is one of those portrays a highly stigmatizing, inaccurate version of DID. However, in my opinion, the film Sybil has rather provided a more accurate portrayal of DID, and the symptoms portrayed by Sybil match with the criteria stated in DSM-V.

According to DSM-V, the criteria for DID includes having two or more distinct identities, and the inability to recall personal information, everyday or traumatic events. Moreover, the person must experience distress caused by disorder or have trouble functioning in major life areas. It is also important to note that the disturbance is neither attributable to the direct effect of a substance, nor a part of cultural or religious practices. Apparently, Sybil meet the criterion for DID, and the film presents a fairly accurate portrayal of the diagnosis of DID. The alter identities of Sybil differ in striking ways involving gender, age, languages spoken, emotional state, knowledge and ability. For examples, the alter Peggy is a nine-year-old girl who hold Sybil’s traumatic fears, and another alter Vicki is a twelve-year-old girl who speaks French and knows about the presence of other personalities. We can find that the behaviour (e.g. dating, playing piano, drawing) inhibited in the host identity, Sybil, are freely displayed by the alter identities. The alter identities are there to protect and take action when Sybil herself cannot, for example, the alter Vanessa falls in love with Richard but Sybil herself is afraid of approaching and dating the man.

The switches can occur quickly or slowly, when switches occur in people with DID, it is often accompanied with a gap in memories for things that have happened (Butcher, Mineka, & Hooley, 2013). Like Sybil, people with DID may suffer from blackouts and find that there is a period of time that they cannot remember. However, the amnesia episodes may not consistent across all the identities, wherein some identities may be more conscious of certain alters than other identities (Butcher et al., 2013). DID can be seen as a failure to integrate various aspects of a person’s identity, consciousness and memory (Spiegel, 2006).

DID is often resulted from repeated or long-term childhood trauma. Like Sybil, often the person with DID have experienced child abuse, and the person might deal with extreme physical or sexual abuse by displaying other identities and hiding those unpleasant memories. Posttraumatic theory can be used to explained the development of DID (Gleaves, 1996; Maldonado & Spiegel, 2007; Ross, 1997,1999). According to posttraumatic theory, DID develops from the child’s attempt to deal with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and powerlessness that caused by repeated traumatic abuse (Butcher et al., 2013). The development of certain alters are to protect the person from traumatic memories, because by escaping into a fantasy, it may help the person to alleviate the pain and distress caused by the abuse. However, not all the children who undergo traumatic events are prone to dissociate or escape into a fantasy. The development of DID might also need to view from the perspective of diathetic-stress model (Butcher et al., 2013), which states that the disorder occurs when the combination of the predisposition and the stress exceeds the individual threshold. That is, people like Sybil may have a diathesis for developing DID when severe abuse occurs.

An important treatment goal for DID is to integrate the separate identities into one primary identity that is able to cope with the stressors. The treatment for DID also focuses on undercovering and working through the past trauma and other stressor that lead to the disorder. The treatment may involve the use of hypnosis, which helps patients to recover the hidden past traumatic memories as well as reestablish the connection between the separate identities. In the film, Dr. Wilber uses hypnosis to help Sybil to recover her repressed childhood memories of physical and sexual abuse by her mother, as well as to help her to integrate her separate identities into one. At the end of the film, Sybil meets with her other identities and embrace them in the hypnotic state, this could mean that she has accepted her other identities. However, there is a risk that people are suggestible under hypnosis, which may in turn affect the accuracy of the recovered memories. There are many times Dr. Wilbur hypnotizes Sybil and asks leading questions that lead her to explain on her childhood memories of abuse. It arises a question about the validity and accuracy of recovered memories because human memory is malleable and people are prone to have false memories of an event that never happened (Butcher et al., 2013). Thus, there is a danger that the therapist may induce the false memories of abuse that never happened. In the movie, at least Dr. Wilbur confirm the validity of Sybil's recovered memories, such as physical and sexual abuse by her mother and the green kitchen she always mentions, by checking her medical record and visiting her old house. 

Moreover, Dr. Wilbur spends very much of her time with Sybil to accompany her and to take care of her. The issue of multiple relationship might need to be taken into consideration because there are several times Dr. Wilbur meets her client Sybil outside of the counseling session. Multiple relationship should be avoided if two relationships indicate conflict of interest and impair the psychologist’s ability to maintain objectivity (Sawyer & Prescott, 2011). However, there seem to be no exploitation or loss of objectivity found in this case. On the other hand, Stockman (1990) argued that avoiding personal encounter with clients and refusing to attend any personal event can lead to breach of trust and impair the therapeutic relationship, which consequently harm the clients. Furthermore, Sybil is at risk for suicide, thus there is a need for Dr. Wilber to be with her and protect her from hurting herself. To sum it up, a successful treatment for DID requires good therapeutic skills and commitment from both therapist and patient. 

Schindler's List

“Schindler’s List is not just a biography of Oskar Schindler, but it is the story of how good can overcome evil and how charity can overcome greed”.

Schindler’s list tells an incredible twist that happens in the heart of a greedy German businessman, Oskar Schindler. Schindler ran his business on the despair of the Polish-Jewish refugees to make big profits, but in the end, he used his factory and life savings to save the lives of more than a thousand Polish-Jews. His behaviours seem so contradictory, I would say, he is selfish yet so selfless. At times I would like to think that everyone is good deep down and would help people for the sake of helping people rather than for their own interest, however, more than once I was struck by the ugly sides of human nature, it often makes me think that how one could be that inhuman, callous and heartless. But I think that Schindler was kind in his nature, even his initial intention was to make a fortune out of the Jews, he realized his power of what his actions could do and he fully utilized that power to save as many lives of Jews as possible. He went to a great length to help the Jews despite knowing that his actions might cost him his life. I would say such an altruistic act is incredible, and not everyone could do that. Particularly since those he offered helps were not related to him, and most of what we heard was people help their significant others or relatives without asking for any return. What Schindler did has exceeded what one normally would do, I would say, he demonstrated some form of genuine altruism. To many Jews, Schindler was a savior who brought light to the dark, horrifying world. Living in a world where there are so many evils and evil acts, at least the story of Schindler evokes my faith in human nature.

This film contains a lot of disturbing images that provoke sadness and anger. The concept of aggression is seen constantly throughout the movie. There are a lot of verbal and physical aggression intended to hurt Jews, and undoubtedly, these aggressions have brought about serious effect upon their lives. Many Jews were being treated like a worthless human, they were abused, exploited, and many of them were killed during that time through cruel and inhuman methods. This also revealed the stereotype that Jews were inferior to German, and those that perceived themselves as superior, they dominate and take advantage of the Jews. However, it is important to note that the stereotype was not accurate. The stereotype was spread by Nazi propaganda around Germany to fuel the hatred for Jews, because they feel threatened by Jews who were successful and competent. The part that struck me the most was the Nazi people who led by an authoritative leader, Amon Golf who was stand under Adolf Hitler’s command, could act in ways that were so inhuman. It bewildered me how come they could just obeyed the authority from the leader and killed the Jews without thinking again whether it was right to kill those innocent refugees. This has reminded me the Milgram’s experiment, which revealed that people are likely to go in obeying an instruction from an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Another experiment that I have been reminded was the Stanford’s prison experiment, which investigated how readily people would conform to the social roles they are expected to play, and it found that the one playing the role of authoritative figure does spur one on to enforce authoritarian measures and act in ways that are inhumane.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

           The movie begins with Rickey Baker, a rebellious city kid being sent to live with a couple in the New Zealand outback. The authorities from Child Welfare describes Rickey as “a bit of a handful, a real bad egg”, however, throughout the movie, we can know that Rickey is actually not a bad boy, just neglected. His foster aunt Bella who is full of warmth and good spirits accepts Rickey without having qualm and assures him that it will be his new and final home. Even Rickey refuses to accept his new foster family at first, but little by little, Bella pierces his hard shell by her warmth and affection. Her every tiny gesture, like listening to his profane yet funny haiku poem and putting a warm water bottle on his bed every night, has make Ricky who has never had a family of his own really feel cared and loved. Although Bella only shows up in the front part of the movie, I believe we all can feel that her loving nature and affection for cast-offs are incredible and completely genuine.

The front part of the movie has focused on the mutual affection between Ricky and Bella. At that time, Hec still keeps his distance from Rickey. However, I would say the most interesting part of the movie is to see how the relationship between Ricky and Hec change from bad to good, and from good to better. This movie tells a story of growth, both for Ricky and his foster uncle Hec. The poorly matched duo run through the bush, and grow closer together over their shared hardship. Rickey learns to hunt, navigate and make camp. Hec learns to accept Rickey, and understand his growing affection for him. The time that Rickey and Hec spend in the bush, although it’s tough, they see it as an enjoyable and cathartic experience they could have hoped for. With each passing day, familiarity breeds affection between the two who at first don’t how to please and understand each other. We see emotional growth in both men, who gradually learns that it is okay to feel for others, and trust in others.

                The movie also reveals the fact that those with a criminal record are often stereotyped as “bad egg” and hard to be reintegrated into society. Like Ricky and Hec, they feel that they are outsiders who are abandoned by society. We know that if they are being arrested for running away will definitely have genuine consequences, and we feel their anxiety – Ricky fears that he will continue to be shuffled through disinterested foster families, and Hec will be imprisoned since he has criminal record. However, towards the end of the movie, the most valuable thing that we can find in both men is their affection and mutual appreciation for each other. 

Grace Is Gone.

Grace Is Gone is a tender and touching movie about a father whose wife, a soldier, is killed in Iraq learns how to cope with grief and summon courage to tell his two daughters the terrible news. This movie evokes many complicated emotions which makes the audiences easily relate to themselves and feel like a fifth member of the family. Inevitably, we all will die one day. This is part of life, even we know that, we can still feel overwhelmed when the day comes. Coping with the loss of someone we love is one of life’s biggest challenges. We may experience all kinds of difficult emotions, such as disbelief, separation anxiety, despair, sadness, anger, guilt and loneliness.

Grief is an emotional suffering that accompany the loss of loved one. Grieving process takes time, it cannot be rushed or forced. Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief in 1969. She stated that these stages of grief are the responses to loss that many people have, but there is no typical response to loss. Everyone respond to loss differently, there is no right or wrong way to grieve. People do not have to experience the stages in a sequential order, or experience all the stages to recover from grief. Grief is more like a roller-coaster ride that is full of ups and down, rather than an orderly progression of stages.

The Five Stages of Grief:

1. Denial. When Stanley receives the news of her wife’s death from the officers, he denies the fact that the death of his wife has happened and think that his wife is still alive. He brings his daughters to a trip, so he could escape from the reality of his wife’s death. He also makes phone call to home to listen his wife’s voice on the answering machine. This allows him to live in the past when Grace was still alive.                                                                                             
2. Anger. When people come to this stage, denial is replaced by feelings of anger. The anger could be rational or irrational, and projected onto environment at times almost at random. In the movie, we can see that Stanley is out of control when his daughter Heidi who is concerned about her school assignment and her father missing work refuses to follow the spontaneous road trip. Moreover, he almost losses his temper when his brother John angrily confronts him and asks him to tell Heidi and Dawn the truth of their mother’s death.                                                                                                   
3. Bargaining. People at this stage will try to negotiate and hope to do something to reverse the death. There is a scene where Stanley makes another phone call to home and leave a message saying that he wished he were the one stayed in military instead of Grace. He wished his eyes could function normally, so he would be able to stay with Grace and protect her.                                                                                   
4.  Depression. After realizing there would not be any changes to what had happened, sadness and hopeless may come at this point of time. Stanley finally decides to tell his daughters what has happened, he brings them to a beach and tell them of their mother’s death. When they all realize Grace is gone, they hug together and cry, just letting the loss settles in their soul. At times the loss of loved one may be too overwhelming for us to face, so depression is a normal response at this point of time instead of a sign of mental illness.                                                                                                                                          
5. Acceptance. This is the last stage of grief where people accept the reality of loss and are at peace with what has happened. Stanley finally accept the fact that his wife is gone and that he needs to buck up for the life afterwards. The final scene shows Stanley and his daughters at Grace’s grave, implying that they have started to accept the death of Grace and face the inevitable task of changing their lives. 

When we are suffering from a significant loss, so are the rest of our family members. Grieving is a long journey that we need to walk hand in hand. If it is difficult enough for an adult to cope with, and for children, experiencing a bereavement could be even more difficult to cope with. We can help our children to understand grief and prepare them for their experience of loss by gently telling them what has happened. It is better to be honest and tell them the truth rather than covering it up, because it may be more hurtful if they listen from others. We could share their feelings and support them through the heartbreaking time by letting them know how we feel and that is fine to experience such feelings. It is also important to note that every children reacts to loss differently, so be guided by children and let them set their pace.

Experimenter

The movie Experimenter has reminded me a quote from Albert Einstein – “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Curiosity opens doors, which lead us down to new path and keep moving forward and doing new thing. The main character in the movie – Stanley Milgram is filled with curiosity or even obsession that got him to keep searching for truth and understanding of human behavior. His curiosity has become his secret weapon to ignite the spark of his every great idea of experiment.

One of his well-known experiments is obedience experiment, which investigates people’s tendency to comply with authority. His obedience experiment seems to have answered his question of how human beings come to participate in inhuman acts such as genocide. His finding is meaningful yet annoying. He discovers the dark side of human nature and explains how our mind transfer the responsibility of our actions to the person giving the orders. It is ironic that Milgram himself also manifests some of the same characteristics he finds so ugly in his subjects. When he is accused by a student in his Harvard class of being deceptive monster, he reacts by shutting her down and objecting to her description of him. His obsession with obedience seems to has blinded his eyes to see how his own methods might be interpreted as an abuse of power.

Despite the annoying finding, Milgram’s obedience experiment has encouraged us to think deeply whenever we are wondering how any human could ever behave in such an inhumane way. One of the important lessons that I learned from Milgram’s works is never let go our curiosity because it allows us to understand the world we live in today. I have always found psychology fascinating, and wondered why people behave in a certain way. Being inspired by Milgram's work, I’m interested in how human being would react when they are in a life-threatening situation like plane crash. Especially when survival resources such as lifeboats and lifejackets are limited, will people sacrifice themselves to save others or will people sacrifice others to save their own life? We heard of “women and children first”, which is a code of conduct whereby the lives of women and children are to be saved first in a life-threatening situation. However, what if survival resources are limited, and there are no vulnerable groups like children, elderly and disabled people in that situation, would people still sacrifice themselves to save someone who is physically as strong as themselves?  I’m thinking whether there is some kind of struggle between selfishness and self-sacrifice, because at times people would not think too much and their instinct will lead them how to behave and respond to such a situation. If I were allowed to conduct a social experiment without concerning about financial and ethical issues, I would like to create a fake plane crash to see how people (passenger) would actually react and respond to such a situation, especially when there's no vulnerable group on plane and all the passengers are the same age and same sex.

Amadeus

Although the title suggests Mozart to be the main character, the film in fact center around his secret rival Salieri and whose mind we are invited to enter. The film is named after the middle name of Mozart instead of his last name that is widely recognized. I guess there is meaning behind that the name is chosen as the title of the film. The name Amadeus means “love of God” in Latin. The film is not meant to trace Mozart’s genius; rather, it depicts the envy of Salieri who was not talented as Mozart could only desire for God’s grace and admire the gift that God had chosen to bestow on someone else.

The film Amadeus delves deeply into the character’s inner world, which focus on the circumstances, motives and internal action of the character. The film starts with Salieri’s suicide attempt as he is overwhelmed by his guilt over causing the death of Mozart. He recounts his tale as confession to a young priest in a mental asylum. He goes on to explain the motivation of his action and the force behind Mozart's financial difficulties and death. Because he believes that Mozart's genius is a gift from God to tease his musical mediocrity. From his tale, we can find that he often associates his life to God's will and seek for God's will when he is planning to do something. However, it seems that the influence of his belief in God has driven him crazy and make him go too far, in which he justified murder to be a God's will.

Throughout the plot, we can find that Salieri is filled with painful inner conflict. He has been struggling between his jealousy for Mozart and his heartfelt admiration of his genius music. He condemns Mozart’s childish and libertine behavior, but there is a part of him that admires him for his independence. Perhaps Salieri has developed a love-hate relationship with Mozart.  Even until he decides to plot Mozart’s ultimate ruin, he still remains as a devoted admirer.

Everyone has an ideal self – the one you feel you should be like (Rogers,1959). Most people wish to reach the top of career, profession, and want to be like a particular role model. Just like Salieri, he wishes to become the person like Mozart who produces great music. It is fine if we try to emulate our role model and succeed, but it is also fine if we try and not succeed. Things will only go wrong when we are too obsessed with our ideal self. When we try to reach and maintain the ideal self but not succeed, we feel bad about ourselves, then mental stress such as despair and depression will arise. In other words, if a person’s ideal self and real self are not consistent or have little overlap, more than likely the person will experience certain amount of dissonance and have lower sense of self-worth (Rogers, 1959). As we want to see ourselves in the ways that consistent with our self-image and also reflects our ideal self, we may develop defense mechanisms such as denial or repression to alleviate the undesirable feelings caused by it (Rogers, 1959). In the film, Salieri devalues his own works and misattributes his musical mediocrity to unjust God and blame Him for not helping him create better music. We can have an idea self, but the key is we should be aware of and accept the fact that the ideal self may not be sure to be achieved.

One of the interesting parts of this film is that the story is entirely recounted through the perspective of Salieri, which is at times subjective and clouded with envy and resentment. If we follow the rhythm of his tale, we will be led deep into his mind and experience his tragedy. Through all of this, I feel empathy for him, and thus it becomes harder to label him as just villain. Because Salieri is the person who shows us ourselves, and we can see ourselves in him. The desires to succeed, to be great, to earn reputation, we all are looking for something that gives us meaning in the world.

Whale Rider

Whale Rider is a magnificently empowering movie that inspires females to have courage to fight against gender stereotypes and gender role about female. It reveals the fact that many females are being treated differently and they have to fight harder for what they want as compared to their male counterparts. It also shows that how a belief results in the issues of gender inequality in a community. In the movie, the Maori chief Koro believes that the first-born males are the descendants of Paikea (whale rider), who will also become the chief of the tribe inherently. Thus, the birth of Paikea Apirana is unfavorable to Koro because Pai’s twin brother was stillborn during delivery but she did not. 

Patriarchy is strongly embedded in the social system of Maori tribe in which males hold primary power and authority over females. The dominant ideology of patriarchy includes the class system of male domination and female oppression in which females are expected to follow the demands requested by males and are unlikely to possess formal power and representation. The society of Maori is patrilineal wherein the leadership is inherited by the male lineage, so Pai is undoubtedly not eligible to become the chief of the tribe simply because of her gender. Koro is deeply disappointed when he realizes that there will be no male heir to succeed him as chief. 

Such an androcentric (male-centered) tradition has somehow brought about detrimental effect on women’s role and self-understanding. Like Pai in the movie, the androcentric tradition has prevented her from being treated as capable as her male counterparts. Her grandfather refuses to acknowledge her capability and leadership potential, and even claims Pai is useless to him. When Pai tries to sit in front during the meeting with boys who are the candidates of next chief, Koro says to her “Paikea you are a girl, go to the back”. When Koro finds out Pai fixes the broken pull cord on his boat and wins her Taiaha fight against Hemi, he is furious at her attempt to break the tradition. In fact, Koro is being in the state of cognitive dissonance because he loves Pai and see her ability to accomplish tasks expected of males; however, he refuses to acknowledge her potential as a leader because she is a girl. 

As a girl, Pai has to fight so hard to get recognition from Koro. She tries to show Koro her interest in leadership and ability to assume the role of chief that her deceased twin brother was destined to be. Even Koro has warned her not to learn anything that is deserved for males, she decided to challenge gender role expectation by not obeying Koro. She secretly learns chant at the outside of the classroom and practice Taiaha fighting with her uncle. She demonstrates her ability in several scenes, such as she defeats Hemi in Taiaha fighting and take the whale tooth necklace Reiputa back from the bottom of the sea that all the boys in Koro’s class fail in their attempts. She is also not afraid to risk her life to save the whale when she is riding on the top of the whale and trying to coax it back to ocean. 

From this scene, we can interpret the dying whales wash up to shore as the dying patriarchal tradition, and Pai who rides on the back of the whale like her ancestors as the rise of female leader.

Pai’s courage and determination have led her to break the gender stereotype and the gender role expectation in her tribe. She is not afraid to stand up to her own belief and confront her tribe’s belief system that males are superior than females. In a scene when Pai is giving her speech, she says that “…if the knowledge is given to everyone, we can have lots of leaders and soon everyone will be strong, not just the ones that have been chosen.”  

It demonstrates that Pai believes that her gender should not dictate who she is as a person and both males and females should be given equal chance to succeed. Oftentimes the assigned tasks for males and females are unjust and discriminatory. Taking Pai as a great exemplar, she has proved that female is as capable as male or even more capable than male of accomplishing many tasks expected of male. The film Whale Rider has projected the fact that our society tends to favor male to succeed and female to fail. Instead of casting female protagonist in a sexually submissive and stereotypically traditional role, Whale Rider has portrayed females in a counter-stereotypical way in which female is depicted as intelligent and capable leader. The film itself has also serve as an inspiring tool for females in patriarchal society to stand up for what they truly want for and not to look down their ability to accomplish something.