Sample Essay On Biographical Portrait AND Psychological Disorder Ofangelina Jolie

Introduction

Angelina Jolie is an Oscar winning American actress and a world famous personality. She has won many awards including Screen Actors Guild Awards, Academy Award and Golden Globe Awards. She is also a humanitarian and was presented the Global Humanitarian Action Award. The objective of the paper is to present biography and psychological disorder of one of the famous artists. In this paper, Angelina Jolie has been chosen as the subject. The paper is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the biographical portrait including elements of childhood, adolescence and adulthood of Angelina Jolie. The second section of the paper talks about the psychological symptoms in the Angelina Jolie’s life history and its diagnosis. The third section concludes the paper.

Biography of Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie was born on 4th June 1975 to actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand in Los Angeles, California (The Famous People, n.pag.). Her father Jon Voight was also an Oscar winning Hollywood actor. Her mother Marcheline Bertrand was part Iroquois and part French actress. After her parent’s separation while she was about two years old, she along with her brother James started staying with her mother in Palisades, New York. Her mother cast off her career in acting for upbringing her children.
Angelina had a bad relationship with her father since her childhood. All her expenses were taken care of by her mother’s modest income. Though she was the daughter of an Oscar winner, still she didn’t get inspiration from her father for acting. Rather she got motivated when she used to watch movies with her mother in her childhood. Her family shifted back to Los Angeles when she was 11 years old. Then she got serious towards acting and enrolled herself in a drama academy, the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. She took admission in Beverly Hills High School, where she felt secluded as other students used to tease her for wearing glasses and braces. She then tried her modelling career, which went unsuccessful as she was scarred and skinny. Both the experience of school and modelling made her self-esteem very low. She then took admission in another school Moreno High School, where she became a rocker. She started wearing black dress and started playing knife game with her live-in boyfriend.She separated with her boyfriend after two years at the age of 16. After that, Angelina Jolie dedicated herself to her acting career once again.
During her teenage, AngelinaJolie found it difficult to emotionally connect with others, and became self-destructive. By the age of 20, she also faced several other problems, like eating disorder, insomnia and drug addiction. She suffered from depression at the age of nineteen and tried to commit suicide twice. At the age of twenty two, she hired a professional killer to kill her. She even experienced a nervous breakdown at the age of twenty four. She had a lifelong poor relationship with her father. She even appealed in a court and removed her father’s surname from her name.She got married thrice. First two marriages ended within three years of marriage. After she got separated from her first husband, some bisexual traits also developed in her as she was seeing a female model, Jenny Shimizu. She is now married with Brad Pitt. She has 6 children, out of which three are adopted and three are biological children with Brad Pitt.

Psychological Symptoms in Angelina Jolie’s life history and its diagnosis

After reading the life history of Angelina Jolie, two psychological disorders have been figured out i.e. anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder. This section is divided into two sub-sections. First section deliberates the definition of anxiety disorder and its diagnosis on the basis of Angelina Jolie’s life history. Second section explains the definition of borderline personality disorder and hypothesizes its diagnosis.

Anxiety disorder in Angelina Jolie and Its Diagnosis

Anxiety disorders come under Axis I disorder. Anxiety disorder is a mental disorder where there is constant exaggerated worry, nervousness and fear of everything without any specific reason (Anxiety and Depression Association in America, n.pag.). Anxiety disorder makes it difficult for a person to live a normal life. There are many features of anxiety disorder i.e. severe spontaneous reaction of an unexpected life event, difficulty in adjustment, emotionally detached from others, difficulty in sleeping, difficulty in concentrating, eating disorder, feeling suicidal and depression. However, the reaction may differ from person to person.

Following are the three diagnosis of the anxiety disorder in Angelina Jolie hypothesizes on the basis of her biography.

First, Angelina Jolie was not able to live a normal life. She found difficulty to emotionally connect with other people because of which had started self-destruction. Not being able to lead a normal life is one of the characteristics of anxiety disorder.
Second, she had twice attempted to commit suicide, hired a killer to kill herself and had a nervous breakdown once. These are examples of constant worry, anxiety and depression. This was another diagnosis of anxiety disorder.

Third, other symptoms such as eating disorder and difficulty of sleepwerealso diagnosed in her life in 20s.

Above evaluation is done on the basis of life history of Angelina Jolie, which clearly shows a diagnosisof anxiety disorder.
Borderline Personality Disorder in Angelina Jolie and Its Diagnosis
Borderline personality disorders come under Axis II disorder. Borderline personality disorder is a serious mental health illness, which is generally seen in adolescence or early childhood, generates significant instability in relationship and behaviour, rapid mood swings and impulsivity (National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder, n.pag.).

After evaluating her biography, Angelina Jolie had given a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

First, the very characteristics of instability in the relationship can be diagnosed from Angeline Jolie’s life history as it can be seen she was not stable in her relationshipsin her teenage and adolescence. She broke up with her first boyfriend within two years. Not only this, her first two marriages ended up within three years. She had a lifelong poor relationship with her father. She also showed traits of bisexual orientation.
Second, other feature of instability in behaviour, mood swings and impulsivity are visible from the symptoms of homicidal ideation, self-destruction behaviour and playing with knife. All these symptoms were visible in her early childhood or in adolescence.
On the basis of all these behaviour and activity, she was given the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, as it could be seen most of the symptoms, not all, are of borderline personality disorder.

Conclusion

Angelina Jolie is a famous and renowned American actress who has won manyawards in her life time including Oscar. She stayed with her mother after the separation of their parents in her early childhood. She was unsuccessful in her first attempt of modelling and got rejected because of skinny and scarred feature. She had a boyfriend with whom her relationship ended within two years. She tried to commit suicide twice and even hired a killer to kill her. She also suffered nervous breakdown once in her life. She got married thrice. The first two marriages ended within three years.
There are several psychological symptoms that are notes down from her life history i.e. suicide attempts, homicidal activity, bisexuality, instability in relationship, insomnia and eating disorder. After evaluating these psychological symptoms, she had been diagnosed with two psychological disorders i.e. anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder. Anxiety disorder is an Axis I disorder because of which there is constant fear, anxiety and worry is there in person’s mind that hampers their leading a normal life. On the other hand, borderline personality disorder is a kind of Axis II disorder, which is seen generally in adolescence or early childhood and in which there is instability in person’s relationship, behaviour and mood.

Works Cited

Anxiety and Depression Association in America. “Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)”. Adaa.org, n.dat.Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder.“About Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)”.borderlinepersonalitydisorder.com, n.dat.Web.23 Apr.2015
The Famous People. “Angelina Jolie Biography”.thefamouspeople.com, n.dat.Web. 22 Apr. 2015.