Multiple Personality Disorder & "The Ward"

I was speaking to another colleague about Multiple Personality Disorder when he mentioned the film "The Ward" which I had watched years ago, however as I couldn't recall it properly. So I decided to watch it again as well as state my point of view.

It goes like this...

Alice Hudson was abducted when she was only 11 years from home address on 03rd September 1958 and was left chained up in an abandoned farmhouse for nearly 2 months.

Trapped in the darkness under horrid conditions she starved, was sick and sexually abused hence her only escape was into delusion. In order to survive after that, her psyche “fractured” hence developing Multiple Personality Disorder and creating different personalities which were represented in the film by: 

Emily – The Id;

Iris – The Artist;

Sarah – The Seductress;

Tammy – The Aggressor;

Zoey – The Infant and the last one…

Kristen – The Protector, the survivor, the intelligent.

Each personality (including her own) took a piece of her nightmare and repressed them by locking them away from her, for her own protection. However as they became more dominant, they completely overwhelmed Alice’s own personality making her stressed, confused and suffocated (that’s how Alice’s own personality died).

Alice (represented by Kristen) managed to escape and burn down the farmhouse where she was kept, after which being taken to North Bend Psychiatric Hospital.

Looking from a different perspective, in this case, through C. Jung’s view point, we can clearly see the different archetypes which are the contents of her collective unconscious (it connects people of different cultures at the deeper level of dreams, ritual, religion and mythology). A kind of knowledge we are all born with, a reservoir of our past experiences from which everything is drawn and made

The archetypes, which have no form of its own, but organizes our existence functioning like a psychological DNA of the mind. It allow us to express certain types of characters, patterns that are common, myths containing same stories and dreams which Jung felt were all common to all cultures as he concluded when setting out travelling in search of other psychological discoveries within other cultures such as in Africa, New Mexico, England and Switzerland where archetypes such as mythology and ritual defined the role of the individual’s lives. For instance, by using symbolism or archetypes to represent their collective unconscious, the Navarro people use archetype in their artefacts as well as in rituals to cure their patients, where they choose the most suitable archetype, which will pass on the power to him or her. Similarly, in Jungian therapy the client has to produce the symbolism if there are no dreams for instance.

Now going back to the film…

Through experimental techniques, Dr. Stringer explains that up to 1966, the treatments were working until "Kristen" turned up as he had been successful in unlocking her repressed memories and isolating her different identities by singling them out one by one, by the usage of hypnotherapy, and eliminating one by one through hypnotherapy itself, ECT and medication. 

Explanation: Over time, Alice's own personality became so overwhelmed by that of the others that she became lost… As the other personalities become dominant and ended up killing Alice (personality), then the ghost “appears” to stop them from rebelling… the ghost image represents the treatment…

 As the first personality, Tammy, is killed, her subconscious realises that it is starting to loose the “battle” as it is loosing the defences, at which point it fabricates Kristen in order to protect Alice (the person) from the previous trauma and the other personalities (and possibly to replace Tammy too), as they were being killed one by one as a result of the treatment which was represented by Alice’s ghost, as mentioned previously (another archetype – possibly The Shadow), a type of disfigured zombie.

When all the personalities had been exterminated, Dr Stringer confronts Kristen during a psychotherapy session (the last personality to be eliminated) and explains who she truly is after which there is a fight between Alice’s ghost and Kristen (in her psyche). As a symbol of success of the therapy, the ghost throws herself and "Kristen" out of the window, reawakening Alice to her real “Self”.

Alice's parents then collect her from the hospital to take her home. As Alice is gathering her belongings, Alice takes one last look around her room. However when she opens the cabinet, Kristen suddenly jumps out of it and attacks her…