The Introduction
The film I would like you to become familiar with is called Frances. It is based on real events. It is a drama film, which tells about the life of famous actress Frances Farmer. According to the plot, once famous actress tries to restart her career, but she depends upon alcohol. Later, the pressures around and her alcohol addiction causes nervous breakdown. The actress is forced to use insulin shock therapy and electroshock. A little later she undergoes a neurosurgical procedure, which is called lobotomy.
The Thesis Statement
A neurosurgical procedure, lobotomy, is recognized to be ineffective and extremely harmful. It is considered to be an extreme measure the doctors are to resort to, if there are no other ways to rely on. In our days, lobotomy is prohibited by law.
The Body: The Fundamentals Of The CBT
First of all, I would like to point out that I totally disagree with the treatment the psychiatrists chose for the actress. In my opinion, there was no need to destroy the frontal cortex and its connections with underlying structures. The doctors destroyed emotional centers of the brain, and transformed famous actress into an inactive creature. In my opinion, they could rely on another form of the therapy; for instance, they had to use cognitive-behavioral therapy, in order to help the actress to cope with emotional disorder. In other words, the doctors had to analyze the thoughts of the actress concerning her life; they had to examine her attitude towards the world and people around. In my opinion, the psychiatrists had to analyze the ways the actress’s thoughts and feelings affected her decisions. I suppose that the psychiatrist had to help Frances to break down her overwhelming contradictions into smaller parts and consider them separately, in details. The main character of the film had to analyze her thoughts, feelings, emotions, inner state, actions, and physical feelings.
In my opinion, the best way to help the actress was to help her to recognize that her ideas and fears were unrealistic and unhelpful. She had to understand the ways her thoughts caused unpleasant feelings.
As far the actress suffered from anxiety and depression, cognitive-behavioral therapy was the best treatment which could help her. On the other hand, the film depicted the events, which took place in the mid of the forties, and thus, one can make a conclusion that the doctors had no alternatives and used lobotomy all over. “The procedure became popular because there was no alternative, and because it was seen to alleviate several social crises: overcrowding in psychiatric institutions, and the increasing cost of caring for mentally ill patients” (Mo, 2007, p. 1).
In our days, CBT is considered to be one of the most effective ways of treatment. To my mind, the kind of psychotherapeutic treatment is effective and helps the patients to focus on a specific problem. Thus, Frances could cope with her problems, as “CBT is commonly used to treat a wide range of disorders, including phobias, addiction, depression and anxiety” (Cherry, 2012, p. 1).
The Conclusion: Some Reasons Of The Disorder
In my opinion, the reasons, which caused the actress’s problems, are mostly related to her mode of life. The career of the actress is not as unclouded as it seems for the first time. On the other hand, some family problems became the secondary reasons of the actress’s nervous breakdown. The main character had to analyze the events which took place in her life. She had to estimate her thoughts, emotions and feelings, in order to prevent disorder development.
References:
Cherry, K. (2012). What Is Cognitive Behavior Therapy? About.com. Psychology. Web.
Mo (2007). The Rise and Fall of the Prefrontal Lobotomy. Science Blogs. Web.