Clinical Diagnosis of Pat Solitano in ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’ (2012): Bipolar Disorder
Kathleen Wesley
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Deakin University, Burwood
Word Count: 2,843 (including in-text citations, timestamps and reference list)

The movie ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, filmed in 2012 and directed by David O. Russel, follows the life story of Pat Solitano, a former teacher who is released from a mental insituation and places significant importance on his getting his life back togther. Over the film’s course, it becomes apparent that Pat suffers from Bipolar Disorder.

Client Presentation

On general inspection, Pat appears to be in his late 30’s, a white male and of average male build. Pat is dressed in a a very worn, grey …show more content…

On the contrary, these studies prove there is no one gene that has a significant effect on the development of bipolar disorder as studies predominantly focus on (single-nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs) thus, it has been postulated that an array of genes with little effect may predispose predisposition.
Due to this unpredictability, many researchers (Smoller & Finn, 2003) have undertaken twin and adoption studies to examine the role of genetics and the environment in an endeavour to further comprehend the biological substructures of bipolar disorder, specifically that of neurobiological processes. (Taylor, Faraone & Tsuang, 2002) As previously established that bipolar is highly heritable, with an 80% chance of heritability (McGuffin et al., 2003; Glahn, Bearden, Niendam & Escamilla, 2004) It has been long assumed that genetic transmission contributes to the progression of abnormal behaviours. (Martinowich, Schloesser & Manji, 2011) additionally, twin studies conducted by (Allen, 1976), postulated both monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs are discordant for bipolar disorder. In their studies, participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine whether any overlaps occurred in brain abnormalities, and to comprehend whether this was due to predominantly genetic and biological factors.

Although genetic and neurobiological studies provide precious insight into bipolar disorder,