An Analysis on the Portrayal of Schizophrenia in Undone

Shreaya Malhotra

The title of the limited drama series ‘Undone’ is extremely reflective of the surface level understanding of schizophrenia– when a person’s whole reality comes undone or unravels in front of them. Schizophrenia is defined as a debilitating and chronic disorder that is characterised by delusions, hallucinations, disorganised thinking, trouble thinking and a lack of motivation (American Psychiatric Association, 2020). The presence of these symptoms with or without insight that involve a distinct break/loss from reality is defined as psychosis (Arciniegas, 2015).

Alma, the protagonist of the show, triggers a psychotic break when she is involved in a car crash and then has hallucinations of her dead father who convinces her that she has powers to time travel. She believes that she gains the ability to warp space and time, and also that she can use this power to go back in time to save her father and unlock secrets of the cosmos. Alma here shows very clear signs of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia– delusions and hallucinations. The delusions here are delusions of grandeur, as Alma firmly believes that she possesses these supernatural powers that nobody else does. These are further presupposed by the visual hallucinations of her father directly talking to her and convincing her of the same, as well as visuals of her warping time (that exists only in her mind and not in reality). Throughout the show, there are extremely bizarre and fantastical montages that happen inside Alma’s head, which showcase how all-consuming and crippling schizophrenia as a disorder is. At times, the viewer also struggles to grasp whether the event that just occurred was real or whether it was all part of Alma’s psychotic break. This confusion is aided by the way the show is filmed– through a technique called rotoscoping, which involves animation layered over the real actors filmed. This rotoscoping provides a very disorienting visual that continues during Alma’s fantastical hallucinations, as well as when we see Alma from an outsider perspective, or even when she realises her psychosis has led up to an extremely dangerous situation for herself or others. For example, Alma teaches small children in daycare and during her psychosis episode, she breaks a mirror and holds up the broken glass pieces. This poses a threat to the children, for if she did not realise what she was doing or if there was no other adult in the area, the children could have gotten extremely hurt. While not everyone with schizophrenia is violent, there exists robust evidence which showcases how people with schizophrenia have an elevated chance of engaging in violent activities (Hodgins, 2008).

Undone also touches upon two interesting aspects of schizophrenia– its biological origin and the prevalence of stressful life events possibly triggering the manifestation of schizophrenia. In the show, it is revealed that Alma’s grandmother had schizophrenia and that her father also displayed signs of schizophrenia in the month before he died. Alma also is directly suggested to have schizophrenia as she is urged to have her prescribed antipsychotic medications by her mother. This supports the widely studied notion of the genetic predisposition of schizophrenia, as Alma’s schizophrenia was shown to be shared by her other family members. Genetic analyses on twins have been pivotal in understanding how the risk for schizophrenia is inherited and how it also has a robust biological basis (Tamminga and Medoff, 2000). Several stressors also existed in Alma’s life before the car crash that immediately preceded her subsequent psychotic breaks. Her father had already passed away, her routine was becoming excessively monotone, she was falling out of love with her boyfriend, and her relationship with her sister was becoming excessively strained due to her dislike for her sister’s fiance. Though research is still not extremely solid about the relationship between traumatic life instances and the prevalence of schizophrenia, several models have been used to explain this relationship, like the stress-vulnerability and stress-sensitivity hypotheses (Mayo et al., 2017). These stressors lend credence to these theories of genetic and environmental factors playing an important role in the manifestation of Alma’s schizophrenia.

Through the colourful, psychedelic, and almost beautiful visuals of Alma’s hallucinations, Undone also depicts how this disorder affects the well-being of other people as well. Her family is constantly roped up trying to get her to stop putting herself in physically dangerous situations, and they tire themselves out trying to urge her to better herself. Alma’s delusions of her power and her own hallucinations of her father convince her against taking medication and continuously make her engage in risky behaviour, which proves how debilitating and dangerous this disorder is. With Alma being so confused by her reality and unreality, the show not only emphasises the devastating nature of the illness on her and others, but also how effective pharmacological treatment and social support and therapy is essential for coping. While Undone is far from a perfect description of mental illness, it touches upon several of the hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia and also its causes. Within its creative and vivid imagery, it manages to highlight the ugliness of the disease for Alma and its impact on her loved ones. Undone portrays the “trippiness” of schizophrenia as other pieces of pop-media attempt to do and at the same time it does not shy away from showing how suffocating the illness truly is.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2020). What is Schizophrenia? Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/schizophrenia/what-is-schizophrenia

Arciniegas D. B. (2015). Psychosis. Continuum (Minneapolis, Minn.), 21(3 Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry), 715–736. https://doi.org/10.1212/01.CON.0000466662.89908.e7

Hodgins S. (2008). Violent behaviour among people with schizophrenia: a framework for investigations of causes, and effective treatment, and prevention. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 363(1503), 2505–2518. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0034

Mayo, D., Corey, S., Kelly, L. H., Yohannes, S., Youngquist, A. L., Stuart, B. K., Niendam, T. A., & Loewy, R. L. (2001, January 1). The role of trauma and stressful life events among individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis: A Review. Frontiers. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00055/full

Tamminga, C. A., & Medoff, D. R. (2000). The biology of schizophrenia. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 2(4), 339–348. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2000.2.4/ctamminga

The Burari Deaths: The Psychopathology of Lalit, a Biopsychosocial Perspective

Pankhudi Narayan Blogpost 1 TW: Death, mentions of suicide. On July 1st of 2018, eleven members of a family were found dead in their shared home in the Burari area of Delhi. The deaths seemed to be fashioned in a ritualistic manner and evidence suggested that the family members were willing participants. This was the Bhatia family, a typical middle-class Indian joint family. Bhopal Singh who had passed away and his wife Narayani Devi formed the older generations of the family and were Lalith’s parents. The most compelling evidence in the uncovering of the events that led to the death of an entire family was provided by eleven diaries found by authorities. The diaries described the events that transpired before the deaths, discussing a ritual that needed to be conducted and the diary entries were corroborated by the post mortem findings as the accounts were found to be consistent with injuries (Yadav et al., 2021). It was uncovered that Lalit, a member of the family who was the

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