Symptoms And Causes Of Antisocial Personality Disorder

The topic of choice. As I delve into this assignment and explore my many options, I realize how so many children’s book and film characters suffer from severe mental illnesses. Many of them include Chuckie Finster from the Rugrats with a general anxiety disorder or maybe even Spider-Man with dissociative identity disorder. My choice of topic today will put us all in the thought right before the holiday season. After watching the film How the Grinch stole Christmas (How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) electric press) I gained interest in the mental state of the Grinch, I have gathered that the Grinch may be suffering from Antisocial personality disorder.

The plot of the Christmas tale. In the film How the Grinch stole Christmas, the Whos of Whoville love Christmas, there isn’t one Who, who doesn’t. The Grinch who was once a part of Whoville has separated himself for quite a long time. A sweet little lady by the name of Cindy wanted everyone in the center town of Whoville to have their traditional Christmas celebration, so she decided to invite the mean old Grinch.

Once the Grinch found his way to the center of Whoville for the celebration, they had a grand time until the mayor decided to do a very awful thing. The mayor gifted The Grinch with something that reminded him of his horrific childhood. Once he received the gift all chaos broke loose. The Grinch began to cause a lot of havoc, burning the town’s Christmas tree, stealing everyone’s… well basically, everything.

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The Grinch stole Christmas and attempted to ruin it for the town.

He soon realized he hadn’t ruined it for the town that everyone’s Christmas did not get ruined, the town turned all that was negative into positivity. Symptoms of Antisocial personality disorder. As I sit here and analyze The Grinch’s mental state, I began to investigate what symptoms of antisocial personality disorder he portrays in the movie. All the symptoms displayed in the movie include antisocial behavior, manipulativeness, risk-taking behaviors, aggression, and cruelty to animals and people. In the film, the Grinch exhibits a great deal of antisocial behavior. He lives far, far away from anyone else the only interaction he has for most of the movie is with his dog. He makes a great effort to keep it the way it is. When people try to pay the Grinch a visit he tries to avoid them and scares them away. The only person he hasn’t scared away enough to not come back is the brave and big-hearted little one, Cindy Lou. The Grinch took loads of risk-taking behaviors and didn’t care to think about what would happen after completing the actions.

Examples of this in the movie include: when he was a very young boy he decided to wreck his classroom because of the constant bullying within that classroom. Soon after, he had run away from home and disappeared from his guardians to live on his own for a very long time, all the way into his adulthood to be more exact. The Grinch had also destroyed an entire town by lighting a tree on fire and destroying a lot of property within the town just to go back to his very isolated abode. He didn’t take a moment to reflect on his actions, he didn’t care what he didn’t care about what he had just done. Aggression is displayed by the Grinch. I wouldn’t be surprised if it weren’t his middle name. There are many scenes in which the Grinch radiates aggression. Whenever someone addresses the Grinch he responds “WHAT”, and that is the simplest sign of aggression seen in this movie by the Grinch. He was also very aggressive in ways of dominating and controlling. He wanted to dominate all the Whos in Whoville by taking away their Christmas and was also very controlling over his dog Max. He had forced his dog to do many things such as become a reindeer and even when he had found out that the dog had a love for Christmas he had thrown Max out of the house along with his dog’s house and the rest of his belongings.

Is this an accurate depiction based on the DSM-5 criteria? According to DSM-5 in the book (Comer, Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, 2018) it states that someone must be 18 years or older to be diagnosed with an antisocial personality disorder but can show symptoms as a child. The Grinch did show many symptoms of antisocial personality disorder as a child as mentioned above and is now much older than 18, I am the one to diagnose him. One criterion that the Grinch does not meet is where it says that the person being diagnosed consistently shows no regard. In the film, the Grinch was very consistent with not giving a care in the world about his negative actions toward numerous people until the end. He was a different person at the end of the film he had physically grown a heart four times the size of his original heart. Had begun to have feelings. Toward the end, he had save Cindy Lou’s life because he no longer wanted to hurt people anymore. He had even returned the gifts to Whoville and surprisingly he had even apologized to the town for all the ruckus he had created in Whoville. To close it off. As many may view the Grinch as a nasty old and bitter creature it took one brave little soul to change it all around as a child the Grinch was bullied constantly to turn him into such a bitter person, a person with no regard for the negative behaviors he displayed throughout the movie. All children’s movies need a happy ending which in this case they had to make that happen. In real life, Cindy Lou was what most psychologists and therapists try to be for a person with antisocial personality disorder, someone trying to understand their past to help them in the present. In this case, Cindy Lou succeeded.