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Select one of the case studies located in Case Studies in Abnormal Behavior. Obtain instructor approval of your selected case study prior to beginning this assignment. Prepare a 1,050- to 1,400-word analysis of your selected case in which you address the following items: Provide a brief overview of your selected case. Explain the biological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components of the disorder analyzed in your selected case. The Case of Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley is one of the most well-known and popular entertainers of all time.
He became a cultural icon, which seems to require dying before your fans see o in old age, as was also the case with James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, and others. Elvis’s music and charisma changed the music industry and left such an impression that he was later called “The King” of rock and roll. A curious testimony to his enduring popularity occurred in August 2001 , when the prime minister of Japan released a compact disc “Junior Osmium Presents: My Favorite Elvis Songs” to commemorate the twenty-fourth anniversary of Elvis’s death.
The prime minister commented, “My birthday is January 8, the same as Elvis. It’s one of the things I’m so proud of. From his first hit recording in 1956 to his untimely death in 1977 at the age of 42, Elvis Presley lived under heavy public scrutiny. It was not until Just before his death that his public began to realize how significantly he was deteriorating. As a result of many destructive personal habits, the most devastating being the abuse of prescription drugs, Elvis’s health had begun to fail at an alarming rate. On August 16, 1977, he died in his bathroom.
The book he was reading at the time of his death was The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus. Both an autopsy and sociology test were administered; from the toxicology test it was determined that the key cause of death was an overdose of several prescription drugs. It is interesting to note that, even in the face of the evidence and personal history of Elvis’s prescription drug use, several doctors testified in court that Elvis did not die of an overdose and, almost absurdly, that his drug usage was not out of the ordinary.
The exact cause of and circumstances surrounding the death of Elvis Presley continue to be subjects of debate; however, the fact that The King severely abused prescription drugs is, thou a doubt, fact. Elvis Aaron (misspelled “Aaron” on his birth certificate) Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in the small, rural town of East Tupelo, Mississippi. His only sibling, Jesse, his twin, was born stillborn 35 minutes before Elvis. His family was extremely poor and moved quite often. His father, Vernon Presley, was a friendly, vivacious man; his mother, Gladys, was considered a good mother and wife.
When Elvis was about 4 years old, his father had some trouble with the law and spent three other hand, his relationship with his mother was extremely close. She was known to e obsessively protective of her only child. Many family members felt Gladys bonded so closely with Elvis because she had been pregnant with twins. Elvis became the center of her world, and she devoted all her love and energy to protecting and raising him. Family members remember Elvis’s mother being very tense and anxious after the birth of Elvis and reported that she would often take medicine to calm “bad nerves” and to help her sleep.
Elvis had a reasonably happy childhood, aside from the problems already noted. In 1949, the Presley family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in hopes of finding steady work. Elvis remained in Memphis until his music career took off. He graduated from high school, and his first recording, a 45 RPM recording of Blue Moon of Kentucky and That’s All Right (Mama), was published on July 14, 1954. In 1954, he debuted at the Grand Ole Pry, and by 1956, under the controlling hand of Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley burst into the media and music scene.
His first television appearance was on March 5, 1955, on the Louisiana Hayride, and his first national television appearance was on January 28, 1956, on Tommy and Jimmy Dodders Stage Show. From 1956 to 1958, Elvis had numerous hit records and dad several movies. His stardom eventually reached unbelievable heights; he eventually had 142 gold records worldwide. However, in March 1958, Just after completing the movie King Creole, he was drafted into the U. S. Army, and this marked a turning point�not in his career, as was first feared, but in his personal life. Elvis phoned his mother to tell her the news.
She refused to speak with him. For the first time in his life, he was alone, without her support. Yet, to his credit, although the army wanted him to take the easy road of being a performer, he went in as a buck riveter and endured the same rigors as his fellow soldiers. After Elvis left for the army, his mother’s physical and emotional health deteriorated. Over the next several months she was noted to be in a constant state of depression, broken only by fits of anger. She began drinking alcohol heavily, was eventually diagnosed with hepatitis, and died in August 1958.
The death of Gladys Presley marked a period of isolation for Elvis. After his release from the army in 1960, he made several unimpressive records and movies. He felt he had lost his creativity and consequently began to distance himself from fans and the world. In 1968, at age 33, he married Priscilla Bullied. Priscilla asserts, and is believed by many who knew both her and Elvis, that she slept with him in his bed for six years before they were married and that she was a virgin when she married. Nine months later, they had a daughter, Lisa Marie. Elvis had his first number-one hit in seven years, Suspicious Minds, in 1969.
But by this time, he was an emotionally drained man whose living habits had become destructive. He began to be promiscuous sexually, and his sleeping schedule was out of sync. He would sleep from 8:00 A. M. Until 4:00 P. M. And party from 4:00 P. M. Until the early morning hours. His eating habits were poor, with big meals consisting of high-fat, fried foods. Perhaps most destructive of all was his increasing dependence and abuse of prescription drugs. From the time Priscilla sued for divorce in 1973 until his death, Elvis’s weight and drug use markedly increased.
Many close friends felt that after Priscilla left, he simply gave up. Elvis had little privacy. He felt his life and destiny were out of control; amid the love and admiration he received, he grew more colon that was two feet too long, glaucoma, a slightly deformed leg, and, most important in the long run, a heart that skipped beats and sometimes awoke him with its pounding). He also had several drug-induced incidents, collapsing or behaving inappropriately on stage or Just canceling tour shows. In 1973, after discovering that Priscilla was involved with another man, he had to be heavily sedated for several days.
In the same year, he experienced problems with his throat that affected his singing. By 1974, he often spent days at a time in his room at Greenland in complete isolation. In 1975, he was admitted to a hospital for a liver problem, but it was rumored that it was for detoxification. For a while after this trip to the hospital, Elvis seemed to be content. However, in 1976, his drug use again increased. During the years after his divorce from Priscilla, Elvis’s behavior fluctuated from highly irrational to severely depressed.
In 1974, he began going on wild spending sprees, often visiting car dealerships and buying every car on the lot, giving the cars away soon after. Gross amounts of money were also given to charities, with the amounts increasing over time. He began to have “giggle fits” on stage, not being able to control himself and often breaking into hysterical laughter for no reason at all. When a gun was thrown onto the stage at one of his concerts, he played with the gun for a while, much to the confusion and apprehension of the crowd. He often seemed confused, and he sweated profusely.
He almost encountered a lawsuit when, at a late-night party, he was wrestling with a woman and “accidentally’ broke her ankle. The crew at his shows reported that he was very irritable and always looking for a fight. All of these instances were offset by periods of seclusion and depression, and his drug abuse continued to increase. In the 32 months prior to Elvis’s death on August 16, 977, his personal physician, Dry. George Unscrupulous, allegedly prescribed nineteen thousand doses of drugs for Elvis. He asserted that many of the pills given to Elvis were placebos, and Unconscious was eventually acquitted of drug charges.
Elvis relied on sympathetic doctors and pharmacists as well as friends in cities all over the United States to fulfill his demand for prescription drugs, such as codeine, morphine, Value, Calluses, and Demeter. His common excuse for getting the prescriptions filled was “tooth problems,” and he often explained late arrivals at concerts by telling he crowd he had a dentist appointment. One of his pastimes toward the end of his life was to study medical and prescription drug reference books; he did this to avoid deadly combinations of the pills he was taking.
In a decision supported by several physicians, the coroner ruled that Presley had died of a cardiac arrhythmia and not of a drug overdose, as the amounts of drugs in his body were alleged to be too low to point toward death by overdose. The autopsy report reads that he had heart disease, clogged arteries, and a distended liver. However, it is important to note that the toxicology report from the Bioscience Laboratories in Van Nuns, California, states that Presley died of olfactory, a report strongly attacked by the autopsy physicians.
But the evidence from the report is staggering. The report lists the following drugs as present in Elvis’s body tissues: codeine, steroids/CATCH (used for colitis/bowel problems), Value, technology (a sedative/hypnotic), Demeter, Amiability (a short-acting barbiturate used to help bring on sleep), Phenobarbital (a sedative/hypnotic), and Methadone (CallusesвЂ?there was a very high amount of this drug found in the tissue). Meyer, R. , Chapman, L. K. , & Weaver, C. M. (2009). Case studies in abnormal behavior. (8th De. ). Boston: Pearson/Allan & Bacon.