Psychological Disorders Displayed in "The Shawshank Redemption" 

    "The Shawshank Redemption" is a film full of inspiration and hope.  It is the story of how no matter what your circumstances are you can always make the best of them. Even though he was falsely accused, Andy Dufrenes maintained a hopeful spirit and always affected people in a positive way.

     "The Shawhank Redemption" (1994, directed by Frank Darabont) is a story of hope in which banker Andy Dufrenes (Tim Robbins) is convicted of the murder of his wife and her secret lover.  He is found guilty and given a life term in Shawshank prison where he meets a fellow convict named Red (Morgan Freeman). Andy and Red become the best of friends. Andy possessed something Red did not, and that was hope. Red has lived in prison so long he is said to have been "institutionalized" meaning prison is all he can remember and he no longer knows what to world is like outside the walls of prison. Andy is a very smart man so he befriends the warden and uses his banking abilities to help him with taxes and other paperwork. The warden grows to trust Andy with almost anything. Being the brilliant man he is, Andy devises a plan to escape Shawshank. One rainy night he crawled through the tunnel he dug with the rock hammer Red had given him. He stopped at nothing to get out of that prison, he even crawled through sewage, but when he was finally free it was all worth the suffering he endured.  Because he handled the warden's finances, he was able to wire money to a fake person's bank account that he was later able to access. Andy Dufrenes displayed great amounts of courage and perseverance. He was a leader and a great role model, he showed all the other prisoners that while guards can lock you body away they could never imprison your soul.

      There two major psychological disorders displayed in "The Shawshank Redemption," such as institutional syndrome and prison sexuality. Institutional syndrome is "deficits or disabilities in social and life skills, which develop after a person has spent a long period living in mental hospitals, prisons, or other remote institutions."  This disorder is not uncommon in people who live in institutions for extended periods of time. Because the sufferers of institutional syndrome do not know how to handle themselves in the world outside of the institution they are used to, they often develop other psychological disorders such as anxiety disorder or depression. People who suffer from institutional syndrome often feel depressed or dehumanized. Prison sexuality also appears in “The Shawshank Redemption.”  Prison sexuality is “sexual relationships between confined individuals or those between a prisoner and a prison employee.” Because prisons are separated by gender, often times the sexual relations consist of individuals of the same gender. This does not necessarily make the prisoner a homosexual, but in certain drastic cases their only option for sexual pleasure is a member of the same gender.

     In the film "The Shawshank Redemption," several different characters accurately portray the psychological disorders known as institutional syndrome and prison sexuality. Displaying institutional syndrome, Brooks (James Whitmore) did not know how to act in culture outside Shawshank Prison. He was put in a half way house that had all the amenities a college dorm has. Brooks was given a job at the local grocery store where the manager did not like him because of his slow work ethic. In a letter to his friends still living in jail he said “The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.” Brooks had lived in the prison for so long and had grown accustom to the job he had as the librarian that he was not able to keep up with the hustle and bustle of a grocery bagger. Later in his letter, Brooks made it clear that he wished he were back in Shawshank Prison because he jokingly planned to bring a gun to work and shoot the manager in order to go “back home.” Sadly, the pressures of the stressful fast paced world overtook Brooks and lead him to commit suicide. Red summed up what happened to Brooks very well when he said, “These walls are funny. First you hate them, then you get used to them. After long enough, you get so you depend on them. That's "institutionalized." Prison sexuality is present in “The Shawshank Redemption” as well. Boggs, another inmate, is one character who seeks other men for his sexual desire. One would not call him a homosexual because if he had the option for a woman to fulfill his sexual wants he would have chosen her over a man. Due to the fact that prisons are not co-ed Boggs was left with no choice and was more or less forced to resort to men for sexual pleasure. Boggs has a group of inmates he is close with who share his interest in men called “the sisters.” The sisters harassed Andy Dufenes several times through out the film. They attempted to force him to perform oral sex but Andy talked his way out of it. They used brute force with their victims and intimidated them by outnumbering their “prey.” “The Shawshank Redemption” did a fine job of accurately describing institutional syndrome and prison sexuality.

     Through "The Shawshank Redemption" we can learn of many things such as the psychological disorders, institutional syndrome and prison sexuality and the uplifting message of hope and perseverance. We learn most about institutional syndrome from the elderly character, Brooks. Boggs and “the sisters” best teach prison sexuality. Last but certainly not least, we learn about hope and perseverance from the honorable, brilliant man, Andy Dufrenes.

Third Example in the Media:

The Terror of Prison Sex

By: Timmy Pratt

For a certain number of men in prison, sex is a terror. They form a class of usually young, usually white, usually "pretty" (or not-ugly) men of whom I'm an example, albeit, a fictitious one. It's always essential to be strong and manly, especially in prison. It's important to be tough and unafraid. In prison there are a lot of predators who want to have sex with me. I've always had a strong sex drive. It's only natural for a young man. I would never admit it to the other prisoners, but, besides having had plenty of girls, as a boy, I also was involved in some shameful sex with other males. Nothing very serious, you understand, but I let some other boys and men give me certain filthy kinds of pleasure. It makes me realize that I have an unnatural weakness. It frightens me a little. I must be continually strong and manly. It would be really, really weak to allow myself to be seduced. That would even be worse than being raped. After years in jail, I'm lonely. I want sex. Sometimes I feel like I NEED sex. It would be shamefully unmanly to allow some pervert to talk me into having sex with him or to let him give me affection or "friendship," or favors so that I felt like I was obligated to have sex with him. You'd be surprised at how many men in prison are weak and give-in to having sex with other men. Like me, most of them aren't "queers." They are just sexually starved and they crave affection and interaction with others. But it's an unmanly weakness. Masturbation is a weakness, too. I try not to give-in to touching myself. It's more natural to have wet-dreams. You can't help having them, so that's not unmanly. The strongest and most masculine men can't help having wet-dreams. Pornography is bad, too. It makes you think about sex even more than you would otherwise. It makes you even weaker and even more sexually hungry. I'm afraid to be too sexually hungry. If I was, it would be too easy to give-in to masturbation, or even to allow myself to be seduced. It's important to be strong and to be on guard. It's hard enough to be on guard against all the predators who want to degrade me by taking advantage of me sexually. I must also be on guard that I don't humiliate myself or allow myself to be humiliated by my own strong sexual desires. Some inmates have sex with members of the staff. That's better, at least when it's with the female staff. The guys who have sex with the male guards, they aren't much better than the many who get with other prisoners or use the jailhouse faggots. But there aren't many of them. I mean there aren't many inmates who have sex with the male guards. There are plenty of faggots. In this prison there are probably 100 or 150 real faggots, maybe one or two out of every hundred inmates. They are the real freaks who don't care that everyone knows what they're into. But, for every one of the "queens," there are three or four guys who pretend to be strong, normal, manly men but are really swapping out with other men. It's a terrifying weakness. I've always kept myself athletic and physically fit. I'm not going to let any of the predators rape me or even think that I'm weak enough for them to dare to try it. What would happen to my sense of manhood? And the other men would make fun of me! It's enough to give you a complex!

Credit to: http://www.prisoners.com/rapefear.html

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Prison rape and sexual assault are both very serious matters. This article explains what it feels like to be in a situation where prison sexuality is prevalent. When Timmy Pratt says "But, for every one of the "queens," there are three or four guys who pretend to be strong, normal, manly men but are really swapping out with other men." we can relate it to Boggs and "the sisters" perfectly. This shows us how sexuality in prison is such a traumatizing matter and should make us realize what a strong man Andy Dufrenes was in the film. He managed to keep his hopes up despite the sexual trauma he experienced.

Second Example in the Media:

Post Institutional Syndrome

Dr. Ronald Federici also works extensively in forensic neuropsychology and has served as anexpert witness in cases involving the assessment and rehabilitation of traumatic brain injury or other neurological disorders. Dr. Ronald Federici lectures nationally and internationally on matters pertaining to developmental neuropsychology and severe neuropsychiatric disorders of children, particularly children from post-institutionalized settings. He is regarded as the country’s expert in neuropsychiatric evaluations of internationally adopted children, particularly children from Eastern Europe.

He has a special interest in Romanian and Russian orphans, and has evaluated well over a thousand Eastern European adoptees and those still residing in their respective countries. Dr. Ronald Federici has appeared on numerous national television and radio shows such as 20/20, Turning Point, Night Line, Good Morning America, British Broadcasting Corporation, as well as publishing in magazines and newspapers around the world regarding the institutional crises in various countries, particularly Eastern Europe. Dr. Ronald Federici has published various articles in addition to his book entitled “Help for the Hopeless Child: A Guide for Families (With Special Discussion for Assessing and Treating the Post-Institutionalized Child)”. He has developed the concepts of “Institutional Autism: An Acquired Syndrome” in addition to researching extensively the “Neuropsychology of Bonding and Attachment Disorders”.

Credit to: http://preparingforadoption.wordpress.com/category/post-institutional-syndrome/

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Not only does institutional syndrome effect adults, but it effects children as well. After being in an orphanage for an extended period of time, children grow accustom to life there just like convicts grow accustom to prison. Institutional Syndrome leads to many other psychological disorders.

First Example in the Media:

The Weak Institutions Syndrome as the Effect of the Cultural-Institutional Gap

By: Paul Fudulu

III. The cultural-institutional gap


Rules are guiding behavior and by their behaviors individuals meet their own ends. Ends are characterized by values (de Jasay 1995:25) and, consequently, rules characteristic to some given community should be consistent with its cultural values and depicted by the same megagoods playing the role of arguments in its cultural utility function. Rules are constraining behavior and whenever they depict a given social reality they are representing the cultural opportunity costs pattern characteristic to that given social reality. The cultural values consistent with these rules are, according to Hofstede (1984), “values as desired”, that is, values as revealed by real social activities of individuals. They can be known but need not be consciously created by individuals. These values do not need to be articulated as well as the rules consistent with them do not need to be articulated by individuals, either. I term these cultural values natural cultural values and their corresponding rules natural rules. An entire set of natural rules guiding the behavior in some given human community is what I term natural order.

Whenever rules are consciously created, they are informed by cultural “values as desirable” (Hofstede 1984), that is, by cultural values that include human ideals and which, consequently, are more or less farther away from natural cultural values. I term these cultural values ideological cultural values and I term institutions all the man-made rules, which are an expression of these values. Consequently, institutions are, at least potentially, at some distance from the natural rules. This distance can be measured by the difference in the opportunity costs for the same megagood, as expressed by the natural cultural opportunity costs pattern and institutional cultural opportunity costs pattern. It is this difference that I call cultural-institutional gap and I place it in the center of the explanation for the weak institutions syndrome
Ideological cultural values are important in determining the magnitude of the cultural- institutional gap, but they are not making up the only causal factor. A community’s institutional setting can be imposed by some more powerful communities. The unidirectional movement of national cultures is by now well argued by solid social scholars (Kant 1784, Cunningham 1910, Fukuyama 1992). My afore-mentioned theory of available relative power leads to the same conclusion.


Whenever a community is confronting a cultural-institutional gap, it has to choose between two sets of rules: the natural order and the institutional setting. Generally, the median rational maximizer representing a community consistently chooses, that is, in his real life he will choose to play by the set of natural rules, which are consistent with his cultural preferences as revealed in action, that is, consistent with his natural cultural preferences. Unless there is in place an enough powerful external enforcement mechanism, an entire community will choose to play by the natural order rather than the institutional setting. The resulting effect is the weak institutions syndrome. 


Credit to: http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/papers/fudulu_041703.pdf


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This article shows us that life inside an institution, no matter what type, is extremely different from life outside.  The life style in an institution is radically different than that out in the world. The values are different in the different places. Whether the institution is a prison or a isolated culture, assimilation into the world is quite an undertaking.

Work Cited:

1. http://www.seechange.ie/index.php/blog/260-institutionalisation
2. dictionary.com
3. Myers’ Psychology for AP