Shutter Island: a brief psychological view of the film

The island called Shutter Island, located near Boston, houses the Ashecliffe Mental Hospital Hospital for the insane.

The island is used to lock up and treat, mainly, people with severe mental disorders who have committed some type of crime. Agent Edward Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule are sent here to investigate the disappearance. of an inpatient, Rachel Solano, who was admitted to the institution after drowning her three sons. Both investigators will try to solve the case, but throughout the investigation of him Daniels will see a series of strange elements that the case hides much more than he expected.

This short paragraph introduces us to the plot of Shutter Island, a film directed by Martin Scorsese and premiered in our country in 2010. Based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island is a psychological thriller film set in the fifties, a turbulent time for psychiatry and psychology when it comes to treating individuals with disorders psychic. This is why analyzing and outlining a brief psychological view of the film can really be interesting both to deepen the meaning of the argument and the history of the psychiatry.

It is advised in advance that this article contains SPOILERS Regarding the film, so its reading is recommended only to those who have already seen it, do not want to see it or do not care if the development and conclusion of the film is gutted.

• Related article: "15 Movies on Psychology and Mental Disorders"

Entering the sinister island: a review of their argument

The story begins with agents Daniels and Aule arriving on the island, to which they have been sent in order to investigate a disappearance. Upon arriving at Ashecliffe, the island's psychiatric hospital, and after being briefed on the security measures by the staff, the agents meet with the director of the center, the doctor Cawley. This tells them that the missing person is Rachel Solano, a patient who entered the center after drowning her children murdered her children and she has surprisingly disappeared, leaving no trail.

Inspector Daniels proceeds to ask him to let them see the records of the professionals who treated the patient, to which the director refuses despite the fact that he allows them to question the staff. The exception would be the psychiatrist who was taking the patient, who is on vacation at the time.

Both agents proceed to investigate the case by inspecting the island and the hospital, questioning psychiatrists and other patients. However, throughout the process the agents see different strange and disturbing details, such as the fact that they are not allowed to visit the island's lighthouse or the attitude of the psychiatrists and even that at a specific moment another of the residents tells the protagonist to flee the place they make him believe that there is something strange in the situation.

In addition, Edward Daniels presents throughout the investigation a series of visions along with flashbacks of his participation in the war. During a dream her wife appears to him, who died together with her children in a fire caused by a certain Andrew Laeddis who coincidentally was also admitted to the sanatorium where they are for later vanish. In her dream, she tells him that her murderer and Rachel are still on the island.

The mysterious note

In the cell where Rachel was locked up, the missing inmate. Edward finds a note with “The Law of Four: Who is 67? "Which causes him to decide to investigate the patient with that number, being convinced that it is the person who caused the fire that killed his family.

The clues and the questioning of one of the patients seem to indicate that they are practicing lobotomies at the lighthouse and unethical experiments are being conducted on inpatients. Due to these events, the obstacles encountered to investigate and the comments of the residents make the agent think that a conspiracy is being hatched against him so that he cannot expose the actions carried out in the sanatorium.

Eventually Rachel Solano is found and presented to the investigators by the doctors., but Agent Daniels still sees something suspicious in the case and the place. After discovering a way to enter the lighthouse, both agents decide to risk investigating inside to collect evidence and subsequently flee the island and expose the psychiatric hospital, after which Chuck Aule she desapears. Shortly after the agent Daniels discovers the real Rachel Solano in a cave, which indicates that she was a psychiatrist of the center who was admitted for trying to denounce the practices and experiments carried out in the center. The next day those responsible for the center affirm that agent Daniels arrived alone on the island, with which he believes that his companion has been kidnapped to carry out experiments. For all this, he decides to finally break into the lighthouse, where he meets his partner and Dr. Cawley.

The identity of Andrew Laeddis

At this point the plot takes an unexpected script twist: the doctor and Chuck explain to Daniels that he is actually Andrew Laeddis, a war veteran and dangerous patient of the center admitted to it after murdering his wife Dolores Chanal.

The whole situation and the investigation that he was carrying out have been a theater organized by those responsible for the center as the last opportunity to make him return to reality as alternative to lobotomy, since Laeddis suffers from a psychotic disorder which prevents him from coping with events and given his military training, he is one of the most dangerous residents of the center. In fact, the patient he was investigating, Rachel Solano, does not exist (the woman the doctors present them as such was an employee pretending his role) but his name has been constructed from his wife, which, as was said of Rachel, drowned her children while she suffered a depressive episode.

In the closing bars of the film it seems that Andrew has finally accessed the memories of his family's death, remembering who he is and what led him to that place. Thus, the doctor's plan would have been successful in bringing him back to reality, and could advance in the treatment of the problem. But shortly after, the protagonist talks to the one who previously believed his partner Chuck, actually a psychiatrist at the center, indicating that they must escape from that place. This leads to finally being considered that he has regressed and due to the danger of the case they decide to lobotomize the patient.

While there is a possibility that he actually relapsed, the last sentence he utters before he is taken to the lighthouse (“This place makes me wonder what would be worse. Living like a monster or dying like a good man ”) suggests that his supposed regression is not such, but rather a performance. In this way the end of the film would imply that Andrew Laeddis, despite regaining his sense of reality, decides that it is preferable to be lobotomized and free from the burden of knowing what has done than to be treated differently and accept and assume that he has killed his wife and lost his children.

Psychology and psychiatry reflected in the film

Shutter Island is a film that, due to its theme and plot twists, may or may not appeal to those who see it. But regardless of this throughout the film we can observe different psychological elements or psychiatric that have been working throughout the film and even that are the basis of his argument.

Some of these items are as follows.

History of psychiatry: from the madhouse to deinstitutionalization

It was mentioned at the beginning of this article that the film is set in the 1950s, this being a turbulent time for psychiatry. This is because it was throughout this decade and the next that the so-called revolution originated. psychiatric, after an arduous "war" (mentioned directly in the film) in which two currents clashed opposed.

Until now, people with severe mental disorders were locked up and isolated in institutions psychiatric hospitals, also known as asylums, in which they were treated as prisoners and isolated from the world and from a normal life. In them, patients were treated by controversial procedures such as leading to coma insulin, electroconvulsions or ablation of parts of the brain as in the case of lobotomy.

As a reaction to this type of treatment and to the social exclusion and cancellation of patients, the antipsychiatry, which would advocate for a greater use of psychotherapy and the abolition of practices such as cited.

The prolonged confrontation between both positions would end with the confluence of both in a new psychiatry, more focused on the search for the normalization of the patient's life. The consequence was the closure of most psychiatric institutions (a process known as deinstitutionalization) and the search for another type of approach to the treatment of disorders, such as pharmacological treatments, ceasing the application of most of the controversial medical therapies of the time and restricting them to very serious cases that could not be solved in another way.

Peering into the mind of Andrew Laeddis: his disorders

As we have seen, throughout history it is reflected how the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio suffers from some type of mental disorder.

It is important to bear in mind that we only know a part of the disorder that torments the protagonist, as well as that mental disorders generally do not occur in a pure state but contain characteristics of other disorders. A correct examination of the patient would be necessary to be able to more accurately determine the disorder suffers, although it is possible through the symptoms shown to get an idea of ​​the problems in question.

PTSD

Due to the symptoms that are reflected throughout history, it is possible to suspect the presence of a post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. The fact of having been exposed to traumatic events that have caused deep emotional affectation, re-experiencing in the form of flashbacks and dreams, the dissociation of his personality and the difficulties with sleep and concentration seen throughout the film correspond to this type of disorder. Likewise, the fact that the mental disorder is linked to a specific event seems to indicate PTSD as one of the most likely diagnoses.

Psychotic-type disorders

However, since it is not possible to diagnose this disorder if someone else better explains the symptoms and given that the patient presents a way of acting characterized by presence of hallucinations and delusions (being a large part of the film the representation of them), it is much more compatible with the case that Andrew Laeddis suffers from a disorder of the type psychotic.

Delusions and hallucinations would in this case have a persecutory character (since he feels persecuted) and self-referential (the character sees himself as a researcher who seeks to help), and would be used by the protagonist as an unconscious mechanism to escape from the reality. Within psychoses, the set of symptoms would suggest a paranoid schizophrenia, although the high systematization of delusions could also indicate the option of suffering from a disorder delirious.

Visible treatments during the film

Throughout the film you can see how different types of psychiatric and psychological treatments, some of which have been refined over the course of weather.

The bulk of the film can be explained as an attempt by the doctors to force the patient's reality back through the representation of the patient's fantasies. This technique bears some resemblance to the psychodrama, a technique in which it is intended to represent the psychic conflicts of patients in order to help them face and internalize them. However, applying this technique in psychotic patients is complex and can be counterproductive, since can reinforce your delusions and make the situation worse.

The pharmacological treatment of psychotic problems is also visualized in Andrew Laeddis himself. The character in question was treated with chlorpromazine, an antipsychotic that kept hallucinations and flashbacks at bay. In fact, as explained in the film, the tremors and headaches that the character suffers throughout the film are partly caused by the withdrawal syndrome from this drug. When he stops taking the medication, flashbacks of his past and various hallucinations also reappear with force, as when he talks to what he considers to be the real Rachel Solano.

The last treatment that is applied to the protagonist is the prefrontal lobotomy, a technique through which the connections of part of the frontal lobe are removed or cut. As the frontal lobe governs executive functions, its ablation produces a state of continuous sedation and severe limitation of mental functions. It was used as a last option in the most serious and dangerous cases. In time it would be replaced by the use of other psychoactive drugs.