Carl's Mental Disorder example essay topic

The movie "The Cell" allows you to take a close look at the reality of evil, where it comes from and how it feels, how it takes over an innocent life, and how it lurks as a possibility within each of us. The movie really deals with explaining what is going on inside the killers mind. At times I felt it hard to sympathize with Carl (the serial killer) because of his three distinct entities Carl as a child, a normal adult, and a serial killing monster. The child represented the timid and innocent Carl, the monster is the serial killing side, and the adult represents everything that is left of his normal mind. I would begin to feel bad for Carl, because in the movie we learn that his father psychologically and physically abused him as a child. However, the monster he became was so dominating in the movie, very demonic, and relentless on his drive to kill.

The movie goes a step further by incorporating science fiction. The color changes from black and white, the different colored hues, the skip frames, the computer images and wormhole like tunnels. It at times made me feel disoriented, it was very dream like. I felt like I was in the middle of someone's dream, to which at times it was a little confusing with all the imagery and symbolism going on. Yet, throughout the movie I felt like I was amongst an evil presence, a presence that could easily take me into its madness. Carl is a deeply disturbed individual and I for one seemed to over look that at times, due to later learning his background as a child.

As I got further into the movie I felt a since of wanting to help him, to reach out to that innocent child like entity and save him. However, with doing so I feel like my sympathizing with him, I would find myself falling deeper into his psychic realm. I feel because this movie takes you into the mind of a serial killer, those who do not understand psychology can learn about this specific mental illness that Carl has. Carl suffers from a rare form of Schizophrenia, to which was trigger by a seizure suffered during his baptism. While the accuracy of this can be debated, I believe that the portrayal was not done in bad taste. People can accurately see some of the actual symptoms of a person with this disease.

Some of the inaccuracies I found was that the movie is based on the premise that in a California research facility a technique has been perfected, whereby someone can enter the subconscious mind of a comatose person, and interact with them. However, this is not new concept, no such technology exists. People may be mislead, in that such aids in psychology do exist. Also, Carl who has Whalen's Infraction schizophrenia takes aspirin to subdue his hallucinations, this is misleading in that a severe case of Schizophrenia such has this must be treated with prescribed medications like antipsychotic drugs which are very affective in treating certain symptoms of Schizophrenia particularly hallucinations and delusions. Last, I found that not all Schizophrenics are necessarily violent in such a way that would make them a serial killer. However, Carl never really actively kills his victims he would systematically kill them by drowning them, so this might be an accurate depiction of a non-violent way of a schizophrenic serial killer.

These were the three things in the movie that I found that might be misleading and not accurate. But I feel the movie tried to reach all aspects while still trying to make it entertaining. The article "Schizophrenia" published in 2002 by the National Institute of Health correlated with the movie in that the movie "The Cell", the disease called Schizophrenia suddenly strikes serial killer Carl Stargher. Schizophrenia, a disease of the brain, is one of the most chronic, severe, disabling, and emotionally devastating illnesses known to man. Schizophrenia is not a split personality disorder. Schizophrenia has a biological basis, in fact, is a relatively common disease, with an estimated one percent and 2 million Americans suffer from the illness in a given year.

The signs and symptoms vary from individual to individual, but all people with the disorder show one or more of the following symptoms: Delusions, these are beliefs that are not true, such as feeling people are following or trying to hurt them, believing other people can read their minds, or beliefs that they have special powers or abilities. Hallucinations, this usually takes the form of hearing voices that are not there, but people with schizophrenia may also see, smell, taste, and feel things that are not there. Bizarre behavior, this can be expressed in many different ways. In short, the individual behaves in ways that seem inappropriate or strange to other people. Disorganized speech, the individual speaks in ways that are hard to understand. For instance, sentences might not make sense, or topic of conversation changes with little or no connection between sentences.

Sometimes speech is completely incomprehensible. "Negative symptoms", these include lack of motivation or interest, diminished cognitive functioning, and decreased emotional expression. Individuals may lose interest in attending to their own personal hygiene, have little interest in interacting with others, and rarely seem to feel or express strong emotions. In addition to these above symptoms, people with Schizophrenia suffer a decline in their level of functioning; for instance, they may not be able to work at a job that requires the same level of skill or concentration as the job they held before they became ill required, or they may lose all ability to withstand the pressures of the working world. They may show a decline in their ability to attend to household chores or all the demands of raising their children, and / or they may not be able to have a full social life anymore. Sometimes Schizophrenia is a chronic condition, and the individual afflicted is constantly experiencing hallucinations or other symptoms of the disorder.

Other people have periods of time when they are relatively symptom-free but have periods of more acute psychosis. Every individual is different, and each person with schizophrenia experiences the disease in a different way. In "The Cell", though the majority of the movie takes place in fantasy, some of the above real-life symptoms are effectively portrayed. Basically, schizophrenia affects Carl in a cause and effect fashion. The trauma in his life around the initiation of the disease becomes his main obsessions in life as the Schizophrenia destroys the rest of his memories. Carl's mental disorder began when he was baptized at a young age.

During Carl's baptism, as he was thrust under the water, he experienced a seizure which awakened the rare form of schizophrenia within him, Whalen's Infraction schizophrenia. This form of Schizophrenia is very rare, hits hard and fast. Normal psyctrophics don't work, it is caused by a virus that affects the neurological system in utero which lays dormant until some type of trauma occurs in the persons life usually displaying signs of a breach where there is an inconsistent trigger in this case Carl's baptism, that sets it off. This form of the mental disorder caused Carl to hear voices that encouraged him to kill.

Not only did the disease encourage him to kill, but it also caused him to treat his victims in a certain systematic fashion that relates to his childhood baptism. First, the killer would lock the innocent victim in a glass cage and then proceed to drown her. In this way, his prey undergoes a similar experience to his baptism. Second, after the individual has already been killed, Carl places the body in pool of bleach, which changes the skin white. This bleaching relates to the purity one should attain after a baptism.

Another effect the disorder placed on Carl was it created three versions of himself in his mind. This is clearly evident when Jennifer Lopez enters his mind and sees Carl as a child, a normal adult, and a serial killing monster an idealized version of himself like a king in his twisted kingdom where he can indulge in anything he wants. This movie really challenged me to think and consider the horrors that can turn an ordinary child into an inhuman monster. This movie made me realize all the many psychological disorders there are out there and how they affect people's daily lives so greatly. I enjoyed the movie; it was visually stimulating but very informative allowing an actual encounter into the mind of a serial killer with this specific disease. The movie obviously used the disorder for the basis of the thriller, making it intense to watch; and to actual think that this may go one inside the mind of a serial killer.

But without milking the disease and portraying all Schizophrenics like this. I felt the movie respected the disease; Jennifer Lopez reached out to Carl and saved his inner child, so there was some sympathy shown from the media. Also, even the detective made an excellent point in the movie, he stated that just because a person goes through something traumatic in their lives doesn't mean that they will grow up to hurt another individual. In closing with reading the article and watching the movie, I felt they went hand in hand going full circle. The movie was entertaining while still being sympathin to the disease.