A famous person who has been diagnosed with a DSM-5 disorder. Select a famous person who has been diagnosed with a disorder listed in the DSM-5.
In a 5-6 page analysis, discuss how well the criteria in the DSM-5 fit the person. Analyze the person’s quality of life and how the disorder impeded or enhanced their success. Analyze possible treatments for the diagnosis.
Introduction
DSM diagnoses are applied to symptomatic individuals who are brought to health care providers, which may result in labeling. But our understanding of the psychological conditions people experience is enhanced if we keep in mind that some ages and populations are probably more sensitive to environmental conditions than others. Selecting a diagnosis carefully and ensuring that it is evident in the client will result in the most effective treatment.
For this assessment, you are asked to think critically about the current diagnostic system and the medical model of mental illness.
Assessment Instructions
For this assessment:
Select a celebrity or other famous person who has been diagnosed with a disorder listed in the DSM-5.
Describe the diagnosis, discussing and citing each criterion from the DSM-5 that the client fits and does not fit for that diagnosis.
Analyze their quality of life as someone with this disorder:
How has the disorder impeded or limited their success?
How did it enhance their success?
Find a journal article that discusses this disorder and analyze how the article’s discussion of the diagnosis compares to the behaviors the individual displays.
Analyze treatments for the diagnosis of the chosen person and support why they would be recommended.
At least one of these treatments should come from a current, peer-reviewed journal article.
Discern how, as a professional in the field of psychology, you would use the information from the article to inform your professional behavior.
The revered sixteenth President of the United States suffered from severe and incapacitating depressions that occasionally led to thoughts of suicide, as documented in numerous biographies by Carl Sandburg.
The British novelist who wrote To the Lighthouse and Orlando experienced the mood swings of bipolar disorder characterized by feverish periods of writing and weeks immersed in gloom. Her story is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.
A defensive end for Vince Lombardi’s legendary Green Bay Packers of the 1960’s, Aldridge played in two Super Bowls. In the 1970’s, he suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless for two and a half years. Until his death in 1998, he gave inspirational talks on his battle against paranoid schizophrenia. His story is the story of numerous newspaper articles.
The famous playwright, author of Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Ah, Wilderness!, suffered from clinical depression, as documented in Eugene O’Neill by Olivia E. Coolidge.
The brilliant composer experienced bipolar disorder, as documented in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb.
The famous opera singer suffered from bipolar disorder, as documented in Donizetti and the World Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century by Herbert Weinstock.
The “inspired poet of human suffering” experienced bipolar disorder, as discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.
Author of War and Peace, Tolstoy revealed the extent of his own mental illness in the memoir Confession. His experiences are also discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Inner World of Mental Illness: A Series of First Person Accounts of What It Was Like by Bert Kaplan.
The dancer’s battle with schizophrenia is documented in his autobiography, The Diary of Vaslov Nijinksy.
The renowned poet’s mental illness is documented in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry by Nancy Andreasen, M.D.
The playwright gave a personal account of his struggle with clinical depression in his own memoirs. His experience is also documented in Five O’Clock Angel: Letters of Tennessee Williams to Maria St. Just, 1948-1982; The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams by Donald Spoto, and Tennessee: Cry of the Heart by Dotson.
The celebrated artist’s bipolar disorder is discussed in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb and Dear Theo, The Autobiography of Van Gogh.