Shutter Island: A Brief Psychological View Of The Film
The island called Shutter Island, located near Boston houses the Ashecliffe Psychiatric 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 to this place to investigate the disappearance of an inpatient, Rachel Solano, who was admitted to the institution after drowning her three children. Both investigators will try to solve the case, but throughout his investigation Daniels will see a series of strange elements that the case hides much more than he expected.
This brief paragraph introduces us to the plot of Shutter Island, a film directed by Martin Scorsese and released in our country in 2010. Based on the novel of the same name written in 2003 by Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island is a film in the form of a psychological thriller set in the 1950s, a turbulent time for psychiatry and psychology in which refers to the treatment of individuals with psychological disorders. That is why analyzing and outlining a brief psychological vision of the film can be really interesting both to delve into the meaning of the plot and the history of psychiatry.
Please note 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 mind spoiling the development and conclusion of the film.
The story begins with agents Daniels and Aule arriving at 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 security measures by the staff, the agents meet with the center’s director, Dr. Cawley. This tells them that the missing person is Rachel Solano, a patient who was admitted to the center after drowning her children, murdered her children and has disappeared in a surprising way, without leaving any trace.
Inspector Daniels proceeds to ask him to let them see the records of the professionals who treated the patient, to which the director refuses even though 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, inspecting the island and the hospital, interrogating 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 He tells the protagonist to flee the place, making him believe that there is something strange in the situation.
In addition, Edward Daniels presents a series of visions throughout the investigation along with flashbacks of his participation in the war. During a dream his wife appears to him, who died along with her children in a fire caused by a certain Andrew Laeddis who coincidentally was also admitted to the sanatorium where they are and then disappears. In her dream, she tells him that her murderer and Rachel are still on the island.
In the cell where Rachel, the missing inmate, was locked up Edward finds a note with the writing “The Law of Four: Who is 67?” “, which causes him to decide to investigate the patient with that number, being convinced that he is the person who caused the fire that killed his family.
Clues and interrogation of one of the patients seem to indicate that lobotomies are performed at the lighthouse and that unethical experiments are carried out on the internal patients. Due to these facts, the obstacles he encounters in investigating and the comments of the residents make the agent think that a conspiracy is being forged 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 about the case and the location. 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 themselves to the psychiatric hospital, after which Chuck Aule disappears. Shortly after, agent Daniels discovers the real Rachel Solano in a cave, who indicates that she was a psychiatrist at the center who was hospitalized for trying to denounce the practices and experiments carried out at the center. The next day, those responsible for the center affirm that Agent Daniels arrived alone on the island, so he believes that his partner has been kidnapped to carry out experiments. For all this, he finally decides to break into the lighthouse, where he meets his companion and Dr. Cawley.
The identity of Andrew Laeddis
At this point the plot makes 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 there after murdering his wife Dolores Chanal.
The entire situation and the investigation that he was carrying out have been a theater organized by those responsible for the center as a last opportunity to bring him back to reality as an alternative to lobotomy, since Laeddis suffers from a psychotic disorder which prevents him from coping. to the 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 to them as such was an employee pretending to be her role) but rather her name has been constructed from that of his wife, who, like Rachel was said to have drowned her children while suffering from a depressive episode.
In the final stages of the film it seems that Andrew has finally accessed his 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 returning him to reality, allowing him to advance in the treatment of the problem. But shortly after, the protagonist speaks with what he previously believed to be Chuck’s partner, actually a psychiatrist at the center, indicating that they must escape from that place. This leads to the fact that it is finally considered that he has regressed and due to the dangerousness of the case they decide to lobotomize the patient.
While there is a possibility that he has truly relapsed, the last sentence he utters before he is taken to the lighthouse (“This place makes me wonder what would be worse. To live as a monster or to die as a good man”) makes one think. that his supposed regression is not such, but an act. In this way, the end of the film would imply that Andrew Laeddis, despite recovering his sense of reality, decides that it is preferable to be lobotomized and freed from the burden of knowing what he has done than to be treated any other way 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 be liked by those who see it But regardless of this, throughout the film we can observe different psychological or psychiatric elements that have been worked on throughout the film and that are even the basis of its plot.
Some of these elements are the following.
History of psychiatry: from the asylum to deinstitutionalization
It has been mentioned at the beginning of this article that the film is set in the 1950s, a turbulent time for psychiatry. This is because it was during this decade and the next in which the so-called psychiatric revolution originated, after an arduous “war” (mentioned directly in the film) in which two opposing currents confronted each other.
Until this time, people with severe mental disorders were locked up and isolated in psychiatric institutions, also known as asylums, where they were treated like prisoners and isolated from the world and a normal life. In them, patients were treated using controversial procedures such as placing them in an insulin coma, electroconvulsions or the ablation of parts of the brain as in the case of lobotomy.
As a reaction to this type of treatment and the social exclusion and cancellation of patients, antipsychiatry would be born, which would advocate for greater use of psychotherapy and the abolition of practices such as those mentioned.
The prolonged confrontation between both positions would end with the confluence of both in a new psychiatry, more focused on the search for 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 era and restricting them to very serious cases that could not be solved in any other way.
Peeking into the mind of Andrew Laeddis: his disorders
As we have seen, throughout the story it is reflected how the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio suffers from some type of mental disorder.
It is important to keep in mind that we only know part of the disorder that torments the protagonist, and 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 they suffer from, although it is possible through the symptoms shown to get an idea of the problems in question.
Due to the symptoms that are reflected throughout the history, it is possible to suspect the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. The fact of having been exposed to traumatic events that have caused him a deep emotional impact, the re-experiencing in the form of flashbacks and dreams, the dissociation of his personality and the difficulties with sleep and concentration that are 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, given that the diagnosis of this disorder is not possible if another explains the symptoms better and given that the patient presents a way of acting characterized by the presence of hallucinations and delusions (a large part of the film being the representation of them ), it is much more compatible with the case that Andrew Laeddis suffers from a psychotic type disorder.
The delusions and hallucinations would in this case have a persecutory character (given that he feels persecuted) and self-referential (the character sees himself as an investigator who seeks to help), and they would be used by the protagonist as an unconscious mechanism to evade the reality. Within psychoses, the set of symptoms would suggest paranoid schizophrenia, although the high systematization of delusions could also indicate the option of suffering from a delusional disorder.
Visible treatments during the film
Throughout the film you can see how different types of psychiatric and psychological treatments were applied at this time, some of which have been refined over time.
The bulk of the film can be explained as an attempt by the doctors to force the patient back into reality through the representation of the patient’s fantasies. This technique has a certain resemblance to psychodrama, a technique in which the aim is to represent patients’ psychological conflicts 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 caused in part by the withdrawal syndrome for this drug. When he stops taking the medication, flashbacks of his past and various hallucinations also reappear with force, such as when he talks with what he considers the real Rachel Solano.
The last treatment applied to the protagonist is prefrontal lobotomy, a technique through which the connections of part of the frontal lobe are removed or cut. Since 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. Over time it would be replaced by the use of other psychotropic drugs.
