Shutter Island and Psychology

[pic 1]

SS1161 Movie and Psychology

2016-17 Semester B

Story Book: Movie and Me

Shutter Island

And

Me

Submitted to

Dr. Wong Wing Kuen

Name: Au Wing Yi

SID: 54040851

Date: 27/4/2017

Words: 996

Summary:

        Shutter Island, an isolated island where a psychiatric hospital for criminals, Ashecliffe, was located. The protagonist, Edward Teddy Daniels was a U.S. Marshal. He was assigned to investigate a mysterious case about a disappeared patient, Rachel Solando, with a partner, Chuck Aule.

        Teddy and Chuck were shown around the hospital, guided by Dr John Cawley, the head of Ashecliffe. They were then trapped on the island by a storm. As Teddy tried to investigate further, he discovered that the doctors and nurses were not cooperating and actually hiding something. He suspected that the hospital was undergoing illegal human experiments. At the same time, he was searching for an arsonist, Andrew Laeddis, who caused the fire that killed Teddy’s wife and was also being kept in Ashecliffe.

        Lastly, Teddy finally reached the truth. In fact, Teddy was Andrew Laeddis, the actual missing patient. He was there because he killed his wife, Dolores Chanal, who drowned all three of their children. Everything was just a role play treatment that Dr Cawley suggested to cure Andrew instead of having him lobotomized. He let Andrew acted out his fantasy and wanted him to face and accept the reality step by step.

Psychological analysis of Andrew Laeddis at Shutter Island:

        According to the world portrayed to the audience from Andrew’s perspective, he was prone to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, as hallucination, persecution and grandeur delusion are commonly found.

        Firstly, the delusion of grandeur. Andrew created the role, Teddy, the U.S. Marshal, the superhero, for himself and deeply indulged in it. He believed that finding the missing patient, Rachel, discovering and stopping the illegal practice at Ashecliffe were his federal mission. He even thought that Dr Sheehan was his partnered marshal.

Secondly, his delusion of persecution. During the investigation, Andrew accused that Ashecliffe was undergoing illegal human experiments on patients while the next target would be him and Chuck. When Chuck was missing and was told he did not even exist, Andrew thought Chuck was captured for experiment and had to be rescued. When he found out that Chuck was actually Dr Sheehan, he immediately thought that he was betrayed and already being put on the human experiment table. He thought that Dr Cawley and Dr Sheehan has been drugging him through the coffee in the canteen, the Aspirin and the cigarette.