Black Swan: A Psychological Analysis

 

Hello! This is another original work that I did for one of my past classes. Our teacher had given us an assignment of watching a movie and psychologically evaluating one of its characters, I chose the movie “Black Swan”. Please do not copy this work or claim that any of it is yours. I’ve cited all of my references for this essay in the last section. I would also like to say that some of the content in this post may be triggering for some people, there are mentions of sex, suicide, death, eating disorders, and multiple other mental illnesses. I suggest you look up the trigger warnings for this movie to see if you would still like to read this essay. Remember to take care of yourself and try not to put yourself into triggering situations if you can. I hope you enjoy this essay! 

Black Swan: A Psychological Analysis

Introduction

In Darren Aronofonsky’s “Black Swan”, a New York ballerina named Nina Sawyer goes through a series of trials and tribulations related to her mental health and dancing, which ultimately lead to her death. Nina’s ballet company is working on the story of Swan Lake, which foreshadows a lot of things in the movie, but the role of Black Swan and White Swan are played by the same dancer instead of two. If you’ve never heard of Swan Lake, a girl is turned into a White Swan, and she needs true love to break the spell. When she finds a prince that could save her, the White Swan’s evil twin, the Black Swan, seduces the prince. Which sends the White Swan into a depression which ends in suicide. After working extremely hard to gain the role of the Swan Queen (Black Swan and White Swan), a new dancer, Lily, becomes her alternate. Nina takes this personally, especially considering that their supervisor, Thomas, is treating Lily the same way he treats Nina. After Nina gets over her fears and stiffness (as a dancer you cannot be stiff under any circumstances), she does beautifully in her role of the Swan Queen. But in a fit of rage against Lily, she takes her own life believing she killed Lily. But we’ll get into the hallucinations later. I won’t be addressing many of the sexual aspects of this movie as they were honestly a bit triggering for me.

Symptoms and Diagnosis

We only see Nina eat 3 times throughout the whole movie; in the beginning when her mother gives her a grapefruit for breakfast, when she gets the role of Swan Queen and her mother makes her eat a tiny bite of frosting, and when she’s getting drinks with Lily. We also see Nina throw up several times, usually after stressful moments or hallucinations. Later in the movie when she’s having her measurements taken for her costumes, the dressmaker/seamstress says she’s lost weight, and Nina looked happy to me. According to Module 9, Nina likely has Anorexia Nervosa (Abnormal-chapter9.pptx, n.d.). Female athletes tend to have high chances of getting eating disorders, and as someone who did ballet, seeing other girls’ bodies, wearing those tight clothes, and being told to suck in your stomach can influence your self-image.

Nina also has an extreme preoccupation with perfection. There are multiple points in the movie where she practices beyond what she needs to. She even injures herself. Her mother was a dancer once, and Nina had just gotten the role of a lifetime, so that likely affected how hard she felt she needed to work. Thomas also said she moved very rigidly and precisely when she danced. When you worry too much about technique to the point where you lose emotion in your dance, it means you’re trying too hard to control everything and make all your moves perfect. She’d also take it hard when someone would criticize her, we even see her cry after she practices with Thomas. She likely has Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (not to be confused with obsessive compulsive disorder). Symptoms of OCPD include an intense preoccupation with perfection, organization, issues dealing with criticism, and an unwillingness to throw out useless or broken objects (Professional, n.d.). Nina lives with her mother in a very childlike room, and it may just be her need to please her mother, but she only gets rid of her childhood toys and other things when she has a meltdown.

         Nina also has a compulsion where she scratches her skin and picks at her nails and fingers when she’s stressed or anxious. This could be a presentation of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Nina doesn’t seem to be able to control her scratching compulsion, as evident by her mother putting gloves on her hand while she sleeps (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, n.d.). It would make sense for her to have obsessive compulsive disorder since it’s usually comorbid with other anxiety related disorders like obsessive compulsive personality disorder. She may also be obsessed with her dancing that could be part of her obsessive-compulsive disorder.

         You’ve heard me talking about hallucinations the entire essay, so let’s get into it. Nina hallucinates constantly throughout the movie. She hallucinates many things like another version (likely a Black Swan) of herself, murdering Lily (when Nina really stabbed herself), Beth (an ex-dancer in her company) killing herself, peeling a large piece of skin from her fingers, and she hallucinates morphing into the Black Swan (wings and all). She also hallucinates having sex with Lily, which she believes to be real and is confused when Lily doesn’t remember. People with schizophrenia are usually diagnosed and start displaying symptoms around 16-30 (Schizophrenia, n.d.), and she’s 28. Nobody necessarily notices her episodes of psychosis (her hallucinations) because they usually happen in private, and she doesn’t say anything about them. The National Institute of Mental Health said that “People who hear voices may hear them for a long time before family or friends notice a problem” when talking about hallucinations in schizophrenia. She also could be having delusions, which are strong but untrue beliefs that may seem irrational to others (Schizophrenia, n.d.). After Thomas makes Lily Nina’s alternate, Nina comes to Thomas crying because she thinks Lily is coming after her. That thought could’ve been what led Nina to kill Lily in her hallucination.

Treatments

         If Nina hadn’t died at the end of the movie, she likely would’ve been put in a mental hospital, suicide attempt or not. Once everyone finally noticed how many issues she was dealing with and how extensive they were she would be hospitalized. I feel like she needs some general psychotherapy for the stress she was dealing with from dance. She also would likely be put on an eating regiment for her anorexia nervosa (Abnormal-chapter9.pptx, n.d.). She would also need psychotherapy for the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and the obsessive-compulsive disorder, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy to help reframe the thoughts and situations that are triggering her. She also may need some medications, likely antidepressants, but they must work with the antipsychotics she needs to be put on for the hallucinations and delusions caused by the schizophrenia (Schizophrenia, n.d.).

        

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Aronofonsky, D. (Director). (2010). Black Swan. [Film]. 20th Century Fox.

Professional, C. C. M. (n.d.). Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24526-obsessive-compulsive-personality-disorder-ocpd

Schizophrenia. (n.d.). National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia

Abnormal-chapter9.pptx. (n.d.). https://lwsd-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/s-jlowevelazquez_lwsd_org/EcthzFB04TpNr55nf5j9QEkBnj8MKmC2FYlRqFhN1zhm6A?e=UqmUMr

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. (n.d.). National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd