The Dark Knight Psychological Analysis

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy constitutes a rather contemporary manifestation of an extensive body of artifacts in media culture. Media culture, Henry Giroux holds, “has become a substantial, if not the primary educational force in regulating the meanings, values, and tastes that set the norms, that offer up and legitimate particular subject positions – what it means to claim an identity as male, female, white, black, citizen, noncitizen” (2-3). Being the most popular remediation of the Batman over the past two decades, the Dark Knight Trilogy reveals contemporary attitudes of mainstream Hollywood film to issues revolving around sexuality and gender as two of the core facets of identity. In particular, the representation of masculinity,

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental disease that develops in those who have experienced a scary or dangerous event and it affects an estimated 6.8% of Americans in their lifetime (National Institute of Mental Health, “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”). Post-traumatic stress disorder is also abbreviated as “PTSD.” Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, follows Billy Pilgrim, a World War II soldier, on his adventures through both the war and after the war. Pilgrim believes that he is visited by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore and abducted by them. He also thinks that he is able to “time travel” to different events throughout his own life. Due to his condition of thinking that he is able to time travel, Pilgrim can be said to have PTSD.

Superhero comics contain many conventions such as morals, a motive, extraordinary superpowers, a back story, and so on. Batman and Superman are a couple of superheroes from a wide variety of superhero comics. Both of them try to protect mankind from any hurt, harm, or danger that may come. A similarity between both of these superheroes is that they want justice in the world. With so much crime and torture going on in the world, mankind looks for a higher power to help stop it. It takes great courage for this to happen. Batman and Superman both want to be able to defeat evil for a greater purpose. Superhero comics also contain super villains. These villains try to come and take over the world. Some come to kill and destroy anything or anyone

This paper describes three particular scenes throughout The Dark Knight and elaborates on those scenes in terms of three specific psychological principles. The psychological principles discussed in this paper is Kohlberg 's theory of postconventional morality, the social trap theory, and antisocial personality disorder.

The movie Shutter Island is overwhelmingly filled with themes of mental health. Before moving into the content of this paper I would like to disclose this movie contains a false and melodramatic portrayal of mental illness, this is not an accurate representation of the field. The movie begins with Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner traveling to a secluded island containing a mental facility for the criminally insane. They are supposedly there to investigate a missing patient, however, throughout the movie we see clips with signs and symptoms that point to Teddy’s own diagnosis of a mental disorder. That maybe Teddy isn’t exactly on the island for an investigation but has his own hidden secrets to uncover. In the final scene, we discover that Teddy (real name Andrew Laeddis) is severely suffering from his own mental health

“I know my head isn’t screwed on straight. I want to leave, confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me” (Anderson 51). Melinda Sordino was the brave, resilient main character of Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel, Speak. Her transition to high school was displayed in a series of journal entries, which provided a clear and accurate window into her psyche. Raped at a party before the start of her freshman year, Melinda was ostracized by teachers, classmates, family and friends, instead of receiving the help she deserved. She continued to be abused by her rapist, popular senior Andy Evans, and was plagued by flashbacks whenever she saw him. The cumulation of her trauma

In The Dark Knight, Batman faces his evil counterpart, the Joker. “The plot involves nothing more or less than the Joker’s attempts to humiliate the forces for good and expose Batman’s secret identity, showing him to be a poser and a fraud” (Ebert, 2008). The Joker plans out different schemes to kill people in wicked and vile ways. “In one diabolical scheme near the end of the film, he invites two ferry-loads of passengers to blow up the other before they are blown up themselves” (Ebert, 2008). This scene in the film is a perfect example of how truly evil the Joker is. His twisted situations are designed to show that these so called good natured people 's “morals, [and] their code, [is] a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. [That] when the chips are down, … these civilized people, [will] eat each other” (The Dark Knight). He wants to prove that everyone is just as psychotic and evil as he is on the inside. Christopher Nolan believed that “truly threatening villains are the ones who have a coherent ideology behind what they’re saying. The challenge in applying that to The Joker was to have part of the ideology be anarchic and a lack of ideology in a sense. But it’s a very specific, laid-out lack of ideology, so it becomes, paradoxically, an ideology in itself” (Foundas, Scott). Ideology can be loosely defined as “socially shared set of ideas that shape behavior” (May 2336). The Joker’s has a mission to try and break people’s shared set of ideas and change their behavior to one similar or close to his. A behaviour which allows citizens to be able to go around murdering people without a care for anyone 's life, and “personifies our greatest fears of a world gone horribly wrong” (Porterfield, John). He is also influencing other villains to rise up and do the same as him, which creates more threats for not only Batman, but

PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder occurs when a person has been through either emotional or physical trauma. Veterans often times develop PTSD due to the physical and emotional trauma that comes along with being in a war. Symptoms of this disorder can include; “depression, worry, intense guilt and feeling emotionally numb. People with PTSD also display impulsive or self-destructive behavior and changed beliefs or changed personality traits” (WebMD). Lastly, AboutHealth.com states that people with PTSD are also very likely to partake in substance abuse in order to numb out their internal turmoil.

Whether at war or at home, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been around since the earliest records of violence in the history of humankind. Although it has been known by different names such as shell shock or combat exhaustion, the symptoms have remained relatively the same and not exclusive to war or combat. PTSD is known to be incurable, but with the advent of modern day treatments and therapies many symptoms of PTSD can be mitigated and alleviated.

Post-traumatic anxiety issue (PTSD), once called shell stun or fight exhaustion disorder, is a genuine condition that can grow after a man has encountered or seen a traumatic or startling occasion in which genuine physical damage happened or was undermined. PTSD is an enduring result of traumatic difficulties that cause serious apprehension, powerlessness, or awfulness, for example, a sexual or physical ambush, the startling passing of a friend or family member, a mischance, war, or common fiasco. Groups of casualties can likewise create PTSD, as can crisis faculty and salvage specialists.

One of my career goals, is to with Veterans who have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Due to combat experience in the Army, I am aware that there are many Veterans who have PTSD and sometimes it may go undiagnosed. Soldiers in the military are taught to keep their vulnerabilities internalized because if they express their vulnerabilities they may appear to be weak. This issue impacts soldier’s mental health in a major way. When soldiers get out of the military, they be unaware that they exhibit the symptoms of PTSD. PTSD can be considered a major life altering mental disorder. Once I obtain my Masters in Social Work, I would like to pursue a career in Counseling Veterans with PTSD.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that is associated with symptoms of arousal, flashbacks, and avoidance. PTSD affects all individuals. PTSD is diagnosed through self- report measures and clinician administered interviews in order to measure the severity of the disorder (Bauer, M.R. et. al,. 1993). Veterans and trauma survivors are reported to experience PTSD, however with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy, it decreases the symptoms and trauma-related cognitions among the individuals affected.

In My Life as a Multiple, Dr. Cameron West shares his journey to the acceptance of his diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, DID, as result from childhood sexual abuse. Cameron, or Cam, lived a fairly normal life with his wife, Rikki, and son, Kyle in Massachusetts. He co-owned a company that sold advertising products with his brother Tom, and lived a quiet lifestyle. Aside from a sinus problem, Cam and Rikki were just like any other family, and there would be no guessing that Cam suffered from childhood sexual abuse. Cam’s mental troubles weren’t revealed until after he physically healed from his sinus surgery. After Cam healed physically, his mind was able to take more control and the alters, “his guys” as Cam refers to them, were

The concept of disasters in providing mental health assistance when there has been a traumatic and devastating event. One of the concepts according to (Everly & Mitchell, 2008) would be psychological reactions to disaster may cause serious psychological impairment. In an over all study according to Norris et al . (2002) There was a study of severity of impairment of 60,000 disaster victims between 1981 and 2001. The sample studies showed 11% had minimal impairment, indicative of transient stress; 51% had moderate impairment, indicative of prolonged stress; 21% had severe impairment. There was significant psychopathology or distress; and 18% had severe impairment. PTSD, MDD, GAD and PD were found and considered specific psychological problems

The United States averages a major war or conflict every twenty years. Wars involve pain, suffering, injuries and death to both conflicting parties. Soldiers and Marines often return home with lost limbs, physical scars, and strained due to prolonged and repeated combat deployments. There is, however, another kind of suffering that has been prevalent in soldiers since the start of war: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is an invisible illness that affects a person’s mental state after being exposed to a traumatic or near fatal incident. It is important to note that PTSD doesn’t just affect soldiers. Anyone can be impacted by PTSD. Humans involved in car accidents, witnessing death, being in natural disasters, or even hearing a