"Which Would Be Worse: To Live As A Monster, Or To Die As A Good Man?"
Synopsis
Shutter Island is a story full of twists and turns that leave the viewer perplexed and intrigued with each scene. The 2010 film set in the 1950’s features Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule, two US marshals who are sent to Shutter Island, a mental health facility for the rehabilitation of the criminally insane, located on a remote island. The pair are sent to Shutter Island because of the recent disappearance of a patient, Rachel Solando. Rachel, who was convicted for the drowning of her three children, had escaped from her cell and was nowhere to be found.
But, at the end of the movie it is revealed that everything that had happened was an elaborate ruse, created through a combination of intricate roleplay organised by the doctors of the facility and Teddy’s own imagination. Teddy, i.e. Edward Daniels is actually Andrew Laeddis and he has been a patient of Shutter Island for the last 24 months. He killed his wife in the summer of ‘52 after she drowned their three children due to undiagnosed manic-depressive disorder.
Teddy Daniels: Repression and Denial
Repression and denial are 2 central defence mechanisms Teddy uses to try to escape the guilt of causing his wife and, relatively more indirectly, his childrens’ deaths. To avoid reality, Teddy created the false story of him being a marshal who came to Shutter Island and uncovering the ‘mystery’ of the asylum being a place where gruelling psychological experiments were conducted secretly in order to strip patients of their abilities to function as anything other than ‘zombies’.
Teddy attempts to repress the truth and subsequently writes over it, creating his own story, making himself the hero. He cannot come to terms with the fact that his actions, or rather his lack of action, caused his family to die. Denial allows him to avoid the excruciating pain of his memories. But, this intense denial cannot forcefully repress the truth. Denial and repression are both fragile and, when an individual comes to a breaking point, both give way for reality.
Defence mechanisms like these are incredibly dangerous because they can lead to severe delusions in cases like Teddy’s. It is also evident that these mechanisms are greatly flawed. He was not able to cover up his reality or escape from it; all he could do was distort it enough that he could forget the truth. His reliance on these mechanisms cause him to continually relapse and regress. He has caused such immense long-term effects on his mind that his false reality seems more believable and that is why, every time he has an ‘awakening’ and the truth is brought back to light, he cannot face it and he goes back to his prior beliefs.
Dolores Chanal: The Impact of Undiagnosed Mental Disorders
Dolores Chanal, Teddy Daniels’s wife, had manic-depressive disorder (now known as bipolar disorder) and suicidal tendencies. She had expressed the same to her husband, saying she felt like an insect lived in her head, skittering around tugging at all the wires for fun. She had formerly set fire to their apartment building, which is why the family relocated to the lake house where their children and Dolores died.
Dolores had shown the warning signs but had been ignored by her husband. He worked, he drank and he stayed away; she was neglected and, in a moment of mental crisis, she drowned her 3 children. She had expressed her concerns and her worries, but nothing was done and this resulted in a huge amount of collateral damage.
Dolores is an example of the importance of identifying psychological atypicality and disorders. Ignorance towards individuals’ psychological behaviour can result in irreparable damage to the person and those around them. Diagnosis of abnormal behaviour can assist a person in getting the help they require to function to the best of their capability, and to be able to develop and retain stable relationships with those around them.
Psychological Treatments
Shutter Island brings to light the various stigmas and practices followed in the earlier days of psychological research and treatment. The time period reflects a situation where psychiatric institutions were often places of confinement rather than treatment; intended to hide away these people and incredibly dehumanising at its core.
Psychiatrists like Dr. Cawley talk about different psychological beliefs: the old school who believed in psychosurgery (surgical interventions and procedures like the trans-orbital lobotomy), the new school who believed in psychopharmacology (using drugs like thorazine to relax patients) and finally Dr. Cawley’s own belief in psychotherapy or talk therapy, which he states as, “if you treat a patient with respect, listen to him, try and understand you just might reach him.”
Conclusion
Psychology is a science that has evolved drastically over the last few centuries, dismantling stigma, creating treatments and safe spaces and providing deeper insight into the human mind and why people do what they do. Shutter Island and other movies exploring complex psychological themes reflect just how we, as human beings, are still in the dark about so much that goes on in our minds. This film introduced various themes including defence mechanisms like trauma, repression, delusion, and identity; psychological procedures and schools of thought through time; and the haunting sides of the human mind.
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