I came across one of my institute assignments from 8 years ago. I wrote an analysis for the course Psychology of Stress. Based on the film "The Empty City". If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. The film "The Empty City" (2007, USA. Starring A. Sandler) In this film, one of the main characters, whose name is Charlie (apparently 35 years old) there is severe stress and, as a result, post-traumatic disorder. Some time ago (not specified in the film), during the terrorist attack in the United States, his wife and three daughters, 5, 7 and 9 years old, were killed on a plane on September 11, 2001. When his old institute friend Alan meets him, he sees before him a detached, lost person. Accordingly, we, the audience, are also given the opportunity to fully observe all the characteristics of a victim of an extreme situation and the subsequent prolonged stress. The universal reaction to any stress is to run, fight or freeze. From the behavior of our hero, we see that he has clearly chosen the first position of response to a stress factor; he is constantly running away from reality, society and himself. Despite the fact that a number of months have passed since the tragedy, Charlie’s behavior is very good three ranks of stress crisis according to Kitaev are visible - Smyk. Stress crisis of the 1st rank. Emotional-behavioral subsyndrome. For Charlie, this manifests itself in passive thinking and unemotional intensification of thinking. He is still in a semi-detached state, as if in a shroud, not in reality. He didn’t even recognize his friend from the institute, although during his student years they lived together in the same room, and then simply based on Alan’s words he accepted the fact that they were friends. Charlie says he doesn't remember Alan. There is also a personality regression in that he behaves like a child (even the daughters of his friend Alan say about Charlie: “This is your strange friend who looks like a child”), plays video games “with monsters”, there is some kind of carefree and detached, he moves around the city on an electric scooter. Goes to the cinema to watch funny films. He almost always wears headphones with loud music playing. Charlie tries not to talk to anyone and seems to be hiding from everyone. One of the symptoms of thinking “on oneself” is clearly manifested. He also exhibits a deformation of spatial-temporal perception, which is expressed in the fact that Charlie often does not understand what he is doing, where he is, and can come to a friend at night when he is already asleep and invite you to a Chinese restaurant. I began to collect vinyl records with non-standard music with some kind of obsession. Charlie is periodically in an excited state, anger, irritation, sometimes this state is expressed in the fact that he turns on the TV or radio loudly, and he himself begins to play percussion instruments loudly and sing. Probably, in this way, he achieves a stop of mental activity and includes substitute actions. The change in the functioning of mental processes is visible in many of his actions. He is either withdrawn into himself, or shows unreasonable outbursts of anger (he begins to shout at his interlocutor for no reason, destroys and breaks everything around him). Over the course of several months, he has been remodeling and repainting the kitchen like a man possessed. Once a month he buys new paint and starts all over again (he never had time to do it while his wife was alive. And he doesn’t know what kind of kitchen she would like). Throughout the behavior of the main character, one can trace a narrowing of attention, a burnout of emotions, and the sum of the factors of his behavior as a whole tells us about post-traumatic disorder. Stress crisis of the 2nd rank. Vegetative subsyndrome. An asthenic state usually occurs in him after irritation, he withdraws, withdraws into himself, avoids further communication and retires. He behaves strangely and looks unkempt. In his case, the activation of adaptive reserves involves both irrational hyperactivity of thinking and stagnant passivity of thinking.Here there is a withdrawal into a hobby, fantasizing, jumping ideas, and stubbornness (he resists everything that is offered to him, especially if it concerns memories). He does not communicate with those who try to talk to him about his family. Pretends that this (family) never happened. He himself also does not mention out loud either the names of his wife and daughters, or the facts that were somehow connected with them. His friend Alan tells his wife about him: “He's stuck in a world of pain. And he communicates only with those who allow him to be himself and will not ask about his relatives.” Charlie's chosen strategy is; he settled in some kind of fictional world where he is alone, he has no family, no relatives and friends, because he himself avoids them (in fact, there are his wife’s parents who really want to communicate with him). Outwardly, he lives a carefree life, does what he wants and goes wherever he wants (music, playing drums in a club and at home, cinema, cafes, video games, endless home renovations, collecting records with unusual music, etc.). He also chooses people to communicate with. He does not work (he lives on insurance, which he received after the death of his family). However, he does not drink alcohol, i.e. I didn’t drown my sorrows in a glass. When they are already trying to provide him with qualified help, he says the phrase: “I don’t like to remember...” When the psychoanalyst tries to start a conversation with him about this situation, he, as always, wearing headphones, begins to turn up the volume so as not to hear anything. Those. The tactics are as follows: run away, hide, do anything, just not to see or hear what makes you remember! Stress crisis of the 3rd rank. Cognitive and socio-psychological subsyndrome. In part, some factors that belong to the third rank have already been mentioned above. For example, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder; monthly repainting of the kitchen, unbridled collection of records, fanatical passion for music. Painful distressed changes in thinking can be seen in all of Charlie's behavior and thinking. And, if Alan had not met on his way, then it is likely that all these symptoms would have deepened further and developed into a 4th rank crisis and dying. Many tried to provide psychological assistance to the hero: the parents of his deceased wife, but because... they just wanted to talk to him not about him, but about the situation and their daughter and granddaughters, they couldn’t help, Charlie ran away from them. When Alan met his friend, he also did not remain indifferent to his misfortune and became just his friend again. The only time Alan tried to ask him about his family, Charlie yelled at him, poured lemonade on him, and wanted to hit him. After that, Alan no longer made these mistakes, but simply was there almost from morning to night, risking a quarrel with his wife because of this. He started talking to Charlie in his own words, doing the same stupid things, i.e. as if it had taken his form. Alan understood that his help could have some minor effect and would prevent his friend from going down completely, but this help was unprofessional and would not bring Charlie out of his mental disorder. Therefore, he turned to his friend, a psychoanalyst, for help and she, as a specialist, managed to take the first step towards curing the main character. Very delicately and carefully, little by little, without forcing or putting pressure, she brought him to the point where Charlie, after the next appointment, left the office, sobbing, and told his friend Alan about everything that was tormenting him so much. Charlie is finishing the renovation in the kitchen ( his wife’s parents gasped), sells this apartment where he lived with his dead family, buys a new apartment and moves. And shortly before the start of the visit to the psychoanalyst, a beautiful divorced girl with a “broken heart” appeared in his field of vision and Charlie noticed her. At the end of the film, Alan leaves his friend and this girl alone in the apartment, although Charlie is still afraid of his inexplicably arising feelings.....================= As a result, the film clearly demonstrates the behavior of PTSD may be hypertrophied in places, however, this disorder can be observed practically.