Mental Health Case Study | Essay

Running head: ESSAY
Case study essay
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1ESSAY
Introduction- Mental health difficulties range from all the apprehensions that individuals
experience in the form of a component of their everyday life, to life-threatening long-term
conditions. Majority of individuals who report signs and symptoms of mental health problems
can usually cope with them, or learn the ability to address them, particularly if they are provided
help during the early stages of the difficulties (Zeanah, 2018). Mental health problems are
typically described or categorized, in order to enable healthcare professionals to refer to the
affected people for apposite treatment and care plan. In other words, mental difficulties refer to a
group of diseases that comprise of symptoms, which create an impact on the perceptions,
thinking, behaviour or mood of the affected person. Mental illness generally makes it
problematic for the people to cope with their work, in educational attainment and personal
relationships (Melton et al., 2017). Some of the most widely prevalent mental disorders are
bipolar affective disorder, psychotic disorder, depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, post-
traumatic stress disorder, and dissociative disorder. This assignment will elucidate a case study
of the fictional character of Norman Bates and utilise psychological theories for explaining the
mental health difficulty that the person is vulnerable to, following which an explanation will be
given for the possible therapies and treatments.
Mental disorder- Multiple personality disorder also referred to as dissociative identity
disorder (DID) refers to a mental difficulty that is predominantly characterized by the presence
of not less than two comparatively separate and distinct personality status (Brand et al., 2018).
These are concomitant with memory gaps, beyond the ordinary nature of forgetfulness, and the
personalities alternately appear in the behaviour and presentation of the affected person,
nonetheless they are variable. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders the signs and symptoms of DID encompass existence of two or even more unique

2ESSAY
personality states that are accompanied by incapability of the person to remember personal
information (Cooper, 2018). The co-occurring identities are unaware of one another, and they
often compartmentalize memories and knowledge, by this means leading to chaos in the personal
life of the patients. While the primary identity typically associated with the name of the patient
tends to be culpable, depressed, dependent and passive, the other identities are hostile,
aggressive, and more active.
Case study- The selected fictional character is that of Norman Bates, that first appeared
during the 60s in Psycho, a classic horror film. Bates was in his mid twenties and a manager of
the highway motel in California. Following a relationship of his mother with Joe Considine,
he used strychnine to murder them both, and after a brief hospitalisation, gradually developed
dissociative identity disorder (DID). He was also found to be a serial killer. The other
personality that he had was that of his death mother that took over him and performed the ghastly
killings (Roberts, 2017). DID was developed assuming that the personality of his mother
repressed his understanding and familiarity with her death, and also helped him escape the
culpability of killing her.
During his childhood he had been subjected to emotional abuse by his mother Norma,
who taught him that different aspects of sex and sexual behaviour were particularly sinning, and
that other females were promiscuous women. His mother was an extremely controlling and
domineering woman, and was obsessive about protecting Norman from any kind of harm. He
was also prevented to spend time with kids belonging to his age. The loss of his father at a young
age also made Norman feel safe and comfortable only in presence of his mother. The degree or
level of psychosocial functioning governs the functioning of an individual in contentment, daily
activities, interpersonal characteristics, wellbeing and self-direction (Gerrard, 2019). The fact

3ESSAY
that Norman, along with his mother, lived essentially amongst themselves, inhibited personality
development in the former. Lack of social interaction with others, obligation of personality
limits, and little or no development of aspirations, dreams or goals also acted as major risk
factors for the development of the mental illness. Therefore, while the normal personality of
Norman involved a well functioning adult, who experienced the emotions of regular life, that of
his mother Norma belittled and dominated him as during his childhood, and also prevented him
to have any life beyond the imposed restrictions.
Theories- Psychodynamic theory holds major significance in explaining the DID
developed by Norman. According to this theory human personalities act in the form of defence
mechanism and provide protection to individuals from traumatic events that occur in their lives.
The psychodynamic perspective originated from the philosophy of Sigmund Freud and places an
emphasis on a range of unconscious psychological processes such as, the fears, wishes, and
aspirations that a person is not completely aware of (Guntrip, 2018). The theory also elucidates
that childhood experiences play an important role in shaping the personality of an adult. It
contends that most of the psychological procedures occur outside the limitations of conscious
awareness, and that activities of the mind are thought to be primarily unconscious.
Maturity of mental activities like motives, feelings, and memories, are not accessible to
consciousness. The psychodynamic theory states that only experiences, together with those that
occur during the initial weeks or months of life affect a person, several decades later (Fulmer,
2018). Another key assumption of this theory is that that there does not occur any random
feeling, motive, behaviour, or thought in a person (Bornstein, Maracic & Natoli, 2018). In other
words, it focuses on cyclic determinism, which says that different mental processes are not
haphazard, rather they are governed by the pre-existing or unconscious mental complexes, such