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"Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

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Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#41

Post by [deleted] »

Karunamon wrote: post #39
Buzaga wrote: post #36

I really can't understand how so many people take this mental illness/disorder stuff for granted, DSM and mental disorders have 0 science in them, the "diagnosis" are based on bullet points and these are decided by a committee or something... how about this mental illness here? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania also, there's a mental disorder for any personality trait ever("oh but it's only considered a DISOR…

>DSM and mental disorders have 0 science in them >pure bullshit Line 1, meet line 4.

[deleted]

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#42

Post by electromagnetic »

enmaku wrote: post #11
stephengillie wrote: post #3

This is more an exercise in how conditions as described in the DSM IV can be applied to almost anyone as easily as a horoscope or fortune cookie. A psychology prof once told us that the DSM isn't a diagnostic manual or any sort of medical text -- it's just a reference book so the insurance industry knows how to bill psychological conditions.

Funny that the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" isn't considered a "Diagnostic Manual" given that a) those words are in the title and b) it's commonly and constantly used by professionals as a manual for diagnosis. It doesn't really matter what your one prof said, it matters how the profession as a whole uses it. I also cited the ICD-10 in the article for several of the disorders, and there abs…

The ICD-10 is a diagnostic manual, when used by a professional. A professional psychiatrist (by that I mean a non-pill pushing psychiatrist) and psychologists are supposed to take long-term observations of their patients to evaluate the severity of the personality traits. In all of these cases it's the severity not the presence that determines if you have the disorder or not.

For those listed in the article, here's my winning score for presence of traits that I'm known to have IRL.

The ICD-10 requires at least 4 of the following for an SPD diagnosis: 1 Emotional coldness, detachment or reduced affect. 2 Limited capacity to express either positive or negative emotions towards others. 3 Consistent preference for solitary activities. 4 Very few, if any, close friends or relationships, and a lack of desire for such. 5 Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities. 6 Indifference to social norms and conventions. 7 Preoccupation with fantasy and introspection.

The ICD-10 requires at least four of the following for an AvPD diagnosis: 1 Persistent and pervasive feelings of tension and apprehension. 2 Belief that one is socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others. 3 Excessive preoccupation with being criticized or rejected in social situations. 4 Unwillingness to become involved with people unless certain of being liked. 5 Restrictions in lifestyle because of need to have physical security.

The ICD-10 requires at least 3 of the following for an APSD diagnosis: 1 Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations. 2 Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment. 3 Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behaviour that has brought the person into conflict with society.

I'm 1 short on the others except histrionic personality disorder, which I'm at least satisfied I had a zero on.

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#43

Post by ignignokt »

Buzaga wrote: post #40
ignignokt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really tell if your position is "there's no such thing as mental illness" or that you just think that the current system gives anyone who wants one a label they can use (though to be honest I haven't met a psychiatrist yet who used the DSM as a reference for diagnostics). Care to elaborate?

what do they use then? intuition? a bit of both maybe, everything around mental illness and disorders is full of blind spots. There's big money involved, there's big holes in the reasonings, history shows it's been misguided/abused more than once... how can it be trusted? a lot of living beings in the world have brains, they've come a long way of evolution to get to where they are here...how come all of a sudden, our…

It's not like the DSM is the be all and end all of psychiatric diagnosing, they spend years (just like any other doctor) at university and in residency etc.

None of this has happened in the last 20 years really, before then people with serious mental illnesses were living on the streets, in prison (well, many still are in these two categories) and in psychiatric institutions (that have since be deinstitutionalised), away from the general populace.

Maybe what you're seeing is that instead of being hidden away and falling through the cracks in society people are now actually able to receive treatment and (a lot of the time) able to function properly in society, so it seems like mental illness is more prevalent.

Yeah the treatment sucks (and from what I've heard it's ridiculously expensive, though I'm in the UK so that's not really an issue), but it's very rare for people to actually be forced to take it, so I think it's safe to say that it's a net gain for a lot of people.

To be honest I think it's pretty unfair on a massive segment of society (on both sides of the fence) for you to dismiss them based on what seem to be fairly weak arguments.

Maybe the problem's that for a lot of mentally ill people you can't actually see what's wrong (compared to a physical ailment), so unless you see/experience it for yourself it's hard to be convinced that it's real?

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#44

Post by ekianjo »

pjin wrote: post #27
benihana wrote: post #6

> While it's great to understand the psychology behind the characters, this knowledge doesn't really make the movie or knowledge that much better. Disagree with this so much. Knowing the depth and psychology of the characters is what makes the Watchman so much more interesting than say Superman or even my favorite superhero, Batman. Watchmen is very open and honest about the fact that people who would do this are pro…

A more extreme example along the same lines as Watchmen is the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. NGE totally rips apart mecha anime and gives its characters psychological issues to tragic effect, mirroring the creator Hideaki Anno's own struggle with depression.

While I like NGE very much, the all psychology aspect of it is mostly just nonsense, though. I have never seen anyone being able to explain it from beginning to end without contradicting themselves. That's part of the magic why people find it superb : they don't get it because there's nothing much to get :)

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#45

Post by ekianjo »

johnchristopher wrote: post #13
benihana wrote: post #6

> While it's great to understand the psychology behind the characters, this knowledge doesn't really make the movie or knowledge that much better. Disagree with this so much. Knowing the depth and psychology of the characters is what makes the Watchman so much more interesting than say Superman or even my favorite superhero, Batman. Watchmen is very open and honest about the fact that people who would do this are pro…

To me, the whole point of the movie is: "The end doesn't justify the means and when someones tells you so it certainly means you are heading for fascism". Characters are "interesting" in the "comic book/fantasy storyline" but not realistic. There's not much to gain from analyzing them other than the stereotypes they stand for. Nothing new under the sun, literary-wise.

Please do not assume the movie is equivalent to the graphic novel. The movie's not bad, but you cannot compare it to the contents of the original work.

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#46

Post by ekianjo »

I read this post with interest but, honestly speaking, if you consider that all the characters have mental disorders, then 100% of the population have mental disorders as well. I am not sure where you can draw a line between a mental disorder and a personality trait !

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#47

Post by scott_s »

baddox wrote: post #28
benihana wrote: post #6

> While it's great to understand the psychology behind the characters, this knowledge doesn't really make the movie or knowledge that much better. Disagree with this so much. Knowing the depth and psychology of the characters is what makes the Watchman so much more interesting than say Superman or even my favorite superhero, Batman. Watchmen is very open and honest about the fact that people who would do this are pro…

Superman is almost entirely about the character's psychology. The whole idea, at least of modern-ish incarnations, is that Superman is unmatched physically (granted, apart from the Kryptonite thing) but is often emotionally devastated (from not being able to save anybody, or for being unable to reason with bad guys, or from keeping secrets from his loved ones, or pondering what it means to be humans, etc.).

Yes, thank you. His modern interpretation is, I think, fascinating. While I think Kingdom Come is the best treatment of this theme, I actually think Frank Miller got it perfectly in Dark Knight Returns:

"Twenty million die by fire... if I am weak..."

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#48

Post by derleth »

ctdonath wrote: post #10
benihana wrote: post #6

> While it's great to understand the psychology behind the characters, this knowledge doesn't really make the movie or knowledge that much better. Disagree with this so much. Knowing the depth and psychology of the characters is what makes the Watchman so much more interesting than say Superman or even my favorite superhero, Batman. Watchmen is very open and honest about the fact that people who would do this are pro…

Indeed, it does improve the story by not just leaving you with a niggling sense that something is wrong with each character, but instead opens the realization that each is, in fact, a textbook-perfect example of that wrongness - dissected, analyzed, quantified and classified as such. It's a great improvement for those of us hyperanalytical geeks now inclined to re-watch the 4-hour director's cut with the DSM IV list…

> where in the DSM IV such a hyperanalytical geek is so categorized

I think we're often put under Asperger Syndrome (AS) (also called Asperger Disorder, Asperger's Syndrome, ass-burgers, and My God He's A Weirdo), which falls under either Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD).

AS is often considered to overlap with High-Functioning Autism (ASD without mental retardation) and, in fact, a change being considered for DSM-V would eliminate AS entirely and lump us in under ASD, which would be rated on a severity scale.

That said, the diagnostic criteria for all of those diagnoses are a bit more involved than 'is a hyperanalytical geek'.

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#49

Post by fallous »

Am I the only one that read/saw Rorschach as the only absolutely moral character? He refused to compromise on the truth and held everyone to the same code. His inability to accept the moral compromise offered by Ozymandius leads directly to his death, which he welcomes rather than pervert his own morality.

Re: "Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder

#50

Post by anamax »

DigitalJack wrote: post #30
anamax wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The end doesn't justify the means If the ends don't justify the means, what does? The problem is actually on the other side. The means produce the end. Not intentions, not the morals of the persons involved, but the means. Fascism, for example, is the result of fascist acts, no matter who does them or their reasons for doing so. That fact seems to be lost on "good people".

There is a food shortage in Africa. One way to solve this would be to kill 80% of the African population. The end (solved food shortage) does not justify the means (mass murder). The means must be able to stand on their own.

> There is a food shortage in Africa.

No, there's a distribution problem, but I'll play along.

> One way to solve this would be to kill 80% of the African population.

Nope. Killing 80% of the African population will not solve the food shortage. (It also won't solve the distribution problem.) Why? Because Africa's food production is roughly proportional to its population and not limited by anything that will be helped by killing lots of people.

The "end" of killing 80% of the African population is that 80% of the population has been killed. Some "good person" might have thought that some good (less starvation) would result from killing them, but the end was a lot of dead people who got killed by said good person.

Thanks for providing an example of where "he meant well" had a horrendous result, as it typically does.

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