Assignment 5: Analysis of a Fictional Source

Aja Binder

PSYC 3406-02: Abnormal Psychology

Dr. Aaron B. Daniels

March 28, 2022

personality disorders. I was appreciative of these classes because a week prior I was struggling to

differentiate a general personality disorder diagnosis from bipolar disorder. However, as class

progressed, I became quickly aware of the many different types of personality disorders that may

or may not contain similar elements of bipolar disorder. This comorbidity reassured my

confusion. Because of the many types of personality disorders, you not only organized them by

their respected clusters, but you also gave them unique nicknames. You referred to antisocial

personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic, and histrionic personality

disorder as the “dramatic” type or cluster B. As someone fascinated by forensics and the mind of

a killer, I was particularly intrigued when you discussed antisocial personality disorder as a

major contribution of criminal behavior. The DSM-5 indicates “irritability and aggressiveness, as

indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults” as a criterion for antisocial personality disorder.

However, because of the organization that DSM-5 goes by, I was intrigued to find out further if

violence due to the dramatizing factor of cluster B personality types, showed up in any of the

other personality types such as borderline personality disorder. Then suddenly, I thought about

the general DSM-5 definition of personality disorder: “an enduring pattern of inner experience

and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture, is

pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and

leads to distress or impairment” and questioned the relationship of violence and the entirety of

personality disorders. I had questioned this relationship because of the strong deviation the

individual experiences from their culture expectations and the result of that which is distress and

impairment. I thought that the impact of these two characteristics were enough to make anyone

resort to violence by means of lashing out due to the overwhelming deviation from their culture’s
expectations and it’s resulting consequence of distress. Therefore, I went researching for an

article discussing a link between violence and personality disorders and to my luck, I was able to

find one.

In 2011, Gilbert et al. released a report on “Illuminating the Relationship Between

Personality Disorder and Violence: Contributions of the General Aggression Model”. In this

report, Gilbert et al. explore the personality disorder-violence relationship by integrating a theory

of aggression, the General Aggression Model (GAM) with the pre-existing personality disorder-

violence literature. This report was a qualitative analysis that compared prior literature of

research on the relationship between personality disorder and aggression to the GAM which

focuses on key cognitive and affective factors proposed to influence aggression tendencies. Prior

literature states that patients with BPD of ASPD were four times more likely to violent after

discharge from a psychiatric hospital than those without a personality disorder. Prior literature

also notes that individuals diagnosed with a cluster A or B personality disorder had a threefold

likelihood of committing violent acts in the future. When the team applied the GAM they saw

that people who have ingrained an accessible aggression-related cognitions and who are most

susceptible to experiencing internal states that activate those cognitions are more likely to act

aggressively. The research also notes that those who believe aggressive behavior will produce

their desired outcome and they believe they can successfully carry out aggressive acts are more

likely to be violent. Gilbert et al. note imitations in their report. One Gilbert et al. note is a poor

correspondence between self-report and interview assessment methods because studies

frequently limit their research by only focusing on the disorders widely assumed to be linked to

violence. Another limitation Gilbert et al. note is that there is not enough research using females,

which may skew the research. The authors conclude by noting that the accumulating evidence
supports the theory that people with personality disorders who are more violent show key

cognitive and affective characteristics; aggression-related cognitions, maladaptive cognitions,

and anger, which are central to aggression.

In the 1990 horror film, Misery, Stephen King beautifully captures the insanity of former

nurse, Annie Wilkes who recently saves novelist Paul Sheldon after a serious blizzard car crash.

Wilkes claims to be Sheldon’s biggest fan and proceeds to bring him to her remote cabin to

recover. Wilke’s obsession takes a horrid turn when she discovers Sheldon is killing off her

favorite character from his novels. Wilkes then becomes increasingly controlling and violent as

she forces Sheldon to shape his writing to suit her twisted fantasies.

King makes Wilkes someone obsessed with perfection. When Sheldon gets the

opportunity to escape from his room and venture into the rest of the house, he bumps into a

ceramic penguin and places it back with the snout facing the opposite way. Wilkes notices the

penguin isn’t facing “due-south” and punishes him by breaking his ankles. Similarly, when

Wilkes forces Sheldon to write a new book, she gathers all the necessary equipment, although

Sheldon notes she has gotten the wrong paper. At this, Wilkes immediately shuts down and

then sarcastically yells, “Do you need anything else? I’ll bring back the whole store for you!”

Wilkes clearly is obsessed with perfection in these examples but more important to note is when

that perfection becomes impaired. She is very critical of her own mistakes, which is why when

Sheldon mentions the paper, she shuts down at first. Wilkes’ hate for profanity is another

interesting aspect of her personality. Wilkes yells at Sheldon for the use of profanity in his work,

in fact, she makes up childish words like “cookiedoodie” to replace those words, because she is

severely inflexible about matters of morality. She believes profanity has no nobility and thus she

forces others to follow her rigid moral principle of profanity. Wilkes has a rigid personality and
wants things done the “correct” way, which is her way. These features are all characteristic of

obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), which is one of three disorders I diagnosis

Wilkes of having.

Wilkes also has borderline personality disorder (BPD). Wilkes shows signs of “unstable

and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of

idealization and devaluation” which is criterion 2 on the BPD diagnostic criteria. Wilkes

idealizes Sheldon, however, after the paper incident she immediately devalues him after and

says, “I go out of my way for you and what thanks do I get?!” Similarly, when she discovers how

Sheldon has been able to escape from his room she asks him, “When are you going to develop a

sense of trust. I cook for you every day!” Both examples show how quick Wilkes goes from

idealization to devaluation. Also, in general, she nurtures him daily but only with the expectation

that Sheldon will be there in return to meet her standards on demand, which is to write the book.

Also, Wilkes has depressive episodes in which she binge eats which is characteristic of BPD as

binge eating is potentially self-damaging. These depressive episodes are characteristic of

criterion 7 as she is troubled with chronic feelings of emptiness which causes her to express an

inappropriate amount of anger over small things. These episodes happen after Sheldon, whom

she is caring for and who she sees a lover, is uncaring and she feels he wants to abandon her. The

previous study supports this diagnosis of BPD because Wilkes believes she can cause easily

pain, as she has in the past, killing several infants who were under her nursing care, killing her

father, and her childhood neighbors and their fathers as well. Thus, she believes that is how she

will get her desired outcome: Sheldon re-writes the last Misery book to her liking.

The last disorder I believe Wilkes has is delusional disorder. I believe Wilkes shows

signs of erotomanic delusions and grandiose delusions. Wilkes thinks that Sheldon and she are
“meant to be together” and as Sheldon is a famous writer, he is of higher status, which is typical

of erotomanic delusions. As for grandiose delusions, Wilkes believes she has made a greater

discovery, which is that “she will be judged only by [Sheldon]”, that “God said [he] delivered

[Sheldon] onto her so that she can show [Sheldon] the way”, and that she and Sheldon are meant

to be together, even in the afterlife as she prepares to kill him and then herself. These are very

characteristic of grandiose delusions because not only do they have a religious context, but they

also warrant a greater discovery that only she knows.

The ending results in Sheldon killing her, although even after 18 months he still sees her

in the form of hallucinations. Even now that Wilkes is dead, Sheldon becomes overwhelmed by

seeing visual hallucinations of Wilkes and undoubtedly suffers from PTSD. This is very brilliant

of King because it shows the twisted nature of mental illness and how it is truly never ending.
 References

Gilbert, F., & Daffern, M. (2011). Illuminating the relationship between personality disorder and

violence: Contributions of the General Aggression Model. Psychology of Violence, 1(3),

230–244. https://doi-org.ezproxy.neu.edu/10.1037/a0024089

Reiner, R. (1990). Misery. Columbia Pictures.