The film is about a fifteen-year-old girl Francesca, who shows abnormal behavior with her eating habits leading to Anorexia Nervosa. Anorexia Nervosa is a psychological and life-threatening eating disorder where those affected suffer from an extremely low body weight relative to their height (Gadsby, 2017). Francesca is a major character who demonstrates abnormal behavior. Motivated at first by the attachment to her strict ballet teacher and the disgust with her own body compared to the other dancers, she gets obsessed with weight loss and a total change in her eating habits which leads to eating disorder. Francesca has trained herself to eat less, throw up after meals, and push herself to the point of getting exhausted. Demotivated by the perception about her body size, she gets secretive, gets into social withdrawal.
Francesca tries to follow the advice of her teacher to “thin and firm,” a statement which makes her feel that she has a big body size compared to the rest of the dancers. Some of the other abnormal behavior include chronic restrictive eating, which is beyond the norm. With her parents unable to notice the strange behaviors, she starts to undergo a rapid weight loss that shocks even her parents. While initially, she had no problem with her body weight, the obsession with being “thin and firm” pushes her to the extent of in ritualistic eating patterns, with key traits of eating alone, cutting food into tiny pieces and hiding food. Francesca also develops some signs of depression in her attempts to lose weight and be like the other dancers. She lacks self-esteem because she believes she does not have a good body size. This pushes her to the extent of trying to avoid people, always wanting to stay in isolation, probably as a result of lack of confidence and esteem in herself.
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The abnormal behaviors of Francesca reflect the learning of behavior from a social context and can range to the cultural beliefs about body size. In this scenario, the cultural beliefs that are acquired through learning and cognitive processes can be responsible for the development of abnormal behavior. Cultures that value thin people can make a person to develop anorexia nervosa in an attempt to lose weight due to the belief and perceptions that thin people look better. Initially, Francesca had no problem with her body size, and everything changes when she is told by the teacher to lose some weight if she wants to be a good dancer.
Treatment from Each Perspective
Cognitive-Behavioral Perspective
Behavioral perspective holds that actions are learned from an individual’s life experiences and not from the unconscious forces. According to this perspective, all behaviors, whether normal or abnormal, are learned from the environment and that such behaviors can be unlearned (Gelo et al., 2015). Any human behavior originates from ineffective learning and conditioning. In the case of Francesca, she learned of the faulty behaviors from a social setting when she was told by the teacher to get thin, and this led to the development of eating disorders. The treatment of this problem from a behavioral perspective can involve the therapist reshaping the disordered behavior and teaching the client more appropriate and adaptive responses and how to cope and deal with the emotions. Based on the cognitive view, the abnormal behaviors are as a result of thoughts and feelings that are usually based on false assumptions. The girl had false assumptions about her body size. The treatment requires methods directed towards helping the maladjusted person develop new thoughts and values through unlearning of the abnormal habits and replacing them with new ones.
Socio-cultural Perspective
This perspective holds that abnormal behavior is learned from a social context, either through interaction with family, friends, or even the culture. The cultural values that are learned through cognition play a key role in producing the abnormal behavior (Jackson & Chen, 2015). In the case of the girl, the abnormal behavior could have resulted from the beliefs that thin people can dance better. Once this belief gets into the mind of the girl, she got obsessed with weight loss and developed a different eating habit. The treatment method for the girl requires addressing the associated cause of abnormal behavior by teaching the girl healthy coping skills and disregard the distorted cultural beliefs. This can involve the therapist telling the girl that she has a good body size and should not be distracted by the cultural beliefs about body size.
Biological Perspective
This perspective holds that abnormal behavior is as a result of the physiological factors which can be treated like a disease and diagnosed. Through this perspective, the eating disorder in the girl will be diagnosed. The medical treatment for anorexia nervosa involves providing medication for any health issues that can result from eating disorder (Naumann et al., 2015). These can include malnutrition, amenorrhea, and imbalance of electrolyte. Other drugs can involve giving multivitamin to the girl to increase appetite.
Psychodynamic Perspective
This perspective holds that abnormal behaviors are as a result of anxiety that is produced due to some unresolved and unconscious conflicts. In the case of the girl, this perspective can look at the weak ego, unconscious motivation, and childhood experiences as the possible unresolved conflicts that lead to abnormal behavior. The therapist can treat the girl by focusing on the identification of the unresolved conflict, such as low self-esteem and then help her find the resolution to the issue.
Humanistic Perspective
This is a perspective that emphasizes empathy and the need to develop good human behavior. An individual with abnormal behavior needs to get empathy and understanding to help the client develop positive behaviors. The humanistic therapist can help the girl by providing counseling that focuses in a way to improve the self-image and self-esteem. This can be done by making the girl feel that she is good with her body size and does not require to lose weight.
Best Perspective
The best and most effective treatment perspective for Francesca is the cognitive-behavioral perspective. The cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on the distorted beliefs, values, and cognitive processes that maintain the disordered behavior (Beck & Bredemeier, 2016). The aim is to modify the distorted beliefs and attitudes about the meaning of weighing, shape, and appearance because these are what correlates to the development and maintenance of the eating disorder. The girl’s abnormal behavior resulted from the thoughts and behaviors that are based on false assumptions. The best treatment, therefore, needs to focus on assisting the maladjusted person in developing new thoughts as well as values. By helping the girl unlearn the false thoughts and beliefs, she can remove the maladjusted behaviors and replace them with normal positive behaviors. Through counseling and free talk, the girl can be helped to develop new behaviors by being told the true meaning of body weight and physical appearance. This can also help the girl to avoid the low self-esteem and obsession with weight loss, which she acquired through social learning and cultural beliefs that thin people can dance better than those with greater body weight. Of all the five perspectives of the abnormal behaviors, the best perspective to treat the girl is the cognitive-behavioral perspective.
References
Beck, A. T., & Bredemeier, K., (2016). A unified model of depression: Integrating clinical, cognitive, biological, and evolutionary perspectives. Clinical Psychological Science , 4 (4), 596-619.
Gadsby, S., (2017). Anorexia nervosa and oversized experiences. Philosophical Psychology , 30 (5), 594-615.
Gelo, O. C. G., Vilei, A., Maddux, J. E., & Gennaro, A. (2015). Psychopathology as social construction: the case of Anorexia Nervosa. Journal of Constructivist Psychology , 28 (2), 105-125.
Jackson, T., & Chen, H., (2015). Features of objectified body consciousness and sociocultural perspectives as risk factors for disordered eating among late-adolescent women and men. Journal of Counseling Psychology , 62 (4), 741.
Naumann, E., Tuschen-Caffier, B., Voderholzer, U., Caffier, D., & Svaldi, J. (2015). Rumination but not distraction increases eating-related symptoms in anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 124 (2), 412.
