Oral Fixation

Sigmund Freud's theory of personality states that personalities are formed during childhood and persist that way throughout life. Becoming fixated in one stage of psychosexual development results in specific personality traits, habits, and attitudes.

The hit TV series Gilmore Girls has one character whom Freud might theorize has been fixated in the Oral Stage of psychosexual development. Becoming fixated in this stage results in becoming either too dependent and optimistic or too aggressive and pessimistic. This character, Kirk, shows signs of the former.

Kirk, the town's "mama's boy," is a roughly 30-year-old man who still lives at home with his mother and allows her to make his most important decisions. She cooks for him, washes his clothes, and takes care of him as she would if he were still a child. He not only allows her to meet his basic needs, but allows her to control his curfew and even tucks him into bed. This is a great (if somewhat exaggerated) example of what can potentially happen if a child is fixated in the Oral stage, according to Freud.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a common stress disorder amongst people who have experienced a severely alarming and disturbing event. This disorder includes symptoms lasting more than one month, such as flashbacks, a lack of ability to concentrate and sleep, recurring nightmares, severe anxiety, etc.

Severely disturbing stressors in life that can cause PTSD include the death of family members, rape, and combat and war-time experiences.

The MTV television series True Life: I Have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder follows a few soldiers who suffer from PTSD as they try to adjust to normal life after war. One soldier, named Kenny, attempted suicide upon his return. Another soldier, named Adam, turned to drinking alcohol to deal with his symptoms, which included an inability to sleep due to anxiety. The third solider, Arther, was medically discharged from the Army with Post-Traumatic Stress and struggled to find work.

Although PTSD is more common amongst women than men, any major stressor in a person's life has the potential to trigger this severe stress disorder.

Addiction

Addiction is one struggle that many of us have dealt with in our lives, either directly or through watching another person suffer from it.

In the film Pay it Forward (2000), an 11-year-old boy name Trevor has an alcoholic father and must deal with the results of that addiction. Trevor's parents divorced because of his father's violent and abusive behavior. This type of behavior is common in people who abuse alcohol, because it depresses inhibitions and clouds judgment; therefore, people, such as Trevor's father, are more likely to act in a way that is unusual and irresponsible for them.

People, when drunk, tend to feel stimulated because of the feeling that the alcohol gives them. That feeling destroys any recognition of consequences, so there are no longer any rules after there is enough alcohol in the system. This may explain why most alcoholics have violent behavior, such as Trevor's father. Once there are no longer any rules and your judgment is impaired, alcohol controls all of your behavior.

In Pay it Forward, Trevor's father, some time after the divorce, claims to have recovered from his alcoholism. That, however, turned out to be inaccurate, as he was not fully recovered. That lie is another example of a behavior not unusual in alcoholics. It is fairly common for them to lie and avoid the truth about their addiction at all costs, whether they are in denial about it or are intentionally withholding the reality of their addiction from other people.

In the end, alcoholics must receive a great amount of assistance in overcoming their addiction, assistance that Trevor's father never sought.

Depression

In the LifeTime original movie Odd Girl Out, an 8th grader named Vanessa is a usually happy and popular student. However, when she becomes the target of adolescent teasing, bullying, and emotional abuse, she falls into a state of depression which includes many self-destructive behaviors.

When Vanessa's best friend turns on her and ends their friendship, she becomes emotionally distressed and unstable. When the whole school begins picking on her and spreading nasty rumors, Vanessa turns her anger and sadness inwards. The betrayal of Vanessa's friends is a good example of a situational change that causes stress in her life, leading to her depression.

In a state of high emotions and sadness, Vanessa cuts off all of her hair. After another incident of bullying, she intentionally overdoses on her mother's sleeping pills. She also skips school, distances herself from her mother by keeping the situation from her, and develops an aggressive attitude. These are good examples of turning resentful, sad, or angry emotions inwards and punishing one's self.

After the bullies are confronted and taken care of by school officials, Vanessa is slowly able to come out of her depression and becomes the happy girl that she used to be, albeit a lot stronger than before. The fact that Vanessa's depression did not last a lengthy period of time, was caused by a situational change, and led her to attempt suicide leads me to conclude that she experienced Major Depression.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

In the bestselling novel, The Lovely Bones (written by Alice Sebold), the main suspect in child's murder case is man named George Harvey.

George displays many characteristics of an antisocial personality, beginning with his disregard for the sanctity of human life as shown in his raping and violently murdering a young girl named Susie.

The most common and obvious signs of an antisocial personality are cruelty towards animals, unusual or abnormal hobbies, lack of a conscience, and a "charming" initial first impression upon other people.

In this book, the pets and animals in George Harvey's neighborhood slowly disappear around the time of Susie's murder. The culprit in all these cases is George, who most likely killed these animals and Susie merely for the sake of killing. He also keeps a unique and obsessive hobby of making doll houses, which is unusual for a middle-aged, unmarried man without children, but fits into the antisocial personality category well.

Mr. Harvey remains overlooked by detectives and the police for a majority of the book because of his smooth demeanor and seemingly normal social skills, which are also characteristics of an antisocial personality.

In the end, all of the characteristics and traits that George Harvey displays point directly to this psychological disorder.