Psychodynamic Analysis of the Wallflower, Charlie’s PTSD

Tenzin Tselha

TW: Trauma, Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, Sexual Assault, Physical Assault, Motor Vehicle Crash and Tragic Death, Loss of loved ones, and Suicide.

Exposure to an overwhelming stressful event(s), such as war, rape, abuse, etc. often results in intense or prolonged psychological distress, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Among all the contributors of trauma to PTSD, data has shown that Sexual Assault, Physical Assault, Motor Vehicle Crash, and Tragic Death respectively as the highest percentage of adults developing PTSD. The likelihood of developing the illness significantly heightens when such negative events occur in childhood. Numerous studies, including Austrian and Resnitriwati (2016), have demonstrated how traumatic events as a child affect both the mental health and personality of adults. This compounds the stigma associated with mental illness, which is created worse by erroneous representations of PTSD in the media and popular culture.

    However, The Perks of being a wallflower, adapted by author-director Stephen Chbosky's novel into the film, portrays the main character, Charlie's PTSD accurately which we shall address more in detail. This paper analyses Charlie's PTSD from a psychodynamic approach along with the social context. It aims to map the factors creating his predisposition to the disorder, and its characteristics and question his PTSD growth.

    The film is written from the point of view of a high school freshman, Charlie(enacted by Logan Lerman). It is arranged as a string of letters he composes for an unidentified acquaintance. Assisting Charlie on his emotional journey are his new friends, Sam(enacted by Emma Watson) and Patrick, and his English teacher, Bill, and his expressive writings. Charlie as a wallflower sees himself developing. He finally comes out to the therapist with the repressed memory that his Aunt Helen had molested him as a child.

    The adverse childhood chronic abuse that he has been suppressing for a long time primarily indicated his PTSD throughout. Re-experiencing the incident depicts the intrusion symptom of it. While his love interest, sam, departs for university after they have a sexual encounter, Charlie has flashbacks of Aunt Helen during their physical intimates and faces trouble concentrating (Chbosky, 2014, 1:26:30). His emotional distress and mental discomfort following his first kiss trigger him into reminding hazy old memories. Despite all this, he makes an effort to avoid visiting the psychiatrist and instead finds a justification for the mountain of schoolwork that needs to be completed. Writing letters, reading books, and essentially summarising Mr. Anderson's publications were coping mechanisms to lie to himself so that he does not feel sadness and panic.

    Moreover, multiple scenes depict his avoidance of people and loneliness. His narrative begins with counting down 1385 days at school and not participating in class when he is informed of the answers to the questions (Chbosky, 2014, 00:6:30). He avoids sharing his thoughts, feelings, and emotions with his parents to prevent them from being concerned again since he has recently been discharged from the psychiatric hospital. Which is why we see him take medications for the disorder. He faces trust issues with people that lead him to lie to people around him. This is shown when he answers that he can “easily shut it off” when his cousin's brother inquires him how challenging it is now but admits how difficult it is to stop re-experiencing it and that it only causes him pain in the end (Chbosky, 2014, 00:49;48 and 1:30:52).

    The audience witnesses his pain through his negative cognition thoughts of blaming himself for his aunt’s death because, at the end of Aunt Helen's life, she tried to give a birthday present to him, but it ended in an accident that killed Aunt Helen. Additionally, he feels guilty about not being able to help his best friend, Michael’s suicide. These two unintentional and deliberate traumatic events respectively are the causal factors of his PTSD. In the later part of the film, Charlie reaches the ‘burnout’ episode where he hypervigilance and rambles to his sister that the death of his aunt is his fault until he eventually blacks out (Chbosky, 2014, 1:30:00). Thus, we observe all four core symptoms according to the DSM-5, that are characterized by Charlie. He is consequently transferred back to the psychiatric hospital where the therapist helps him through psychoanalytic and humanistic intervention.

    

    As his parents finally know of his abuse and empathize with him, comfort comes back into the home. The film chronicles Charlie’s posttraumatic growth process as he opens to friendship, romance, and social interactions. Adolescents need support from many parties and this social support can be a mediator when there is a negative relationship between stress and well-being. (Haslam, O’Brien, Jetten, Vormedal, & Penna, 2005). He incorporates his perception of benefits with the assistance of protective individuals around, medication, and psychotherapy, and his gain of valuable insights. In the end, he narrates how busy he is in attempting to participate in high school, and how writing helps him feel less isolated and out of all, lives in the moment. He shares his astonishment at knowing that life is not a sad story but rather that standing up and seeing the lights that make you wonder that “we are infinite” (Chbosky, 2014, 1:38:40). He starts to believe that he has agency over his own life.

     Figures