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Stephen Daldry's deeply moving film (written by David Hare) of Michael Cunningham's book, The Hours,1 is a touching portrayal of the lives of three troubled women living at different times during the twentieth century, and all connected to Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. We see each woman on a particular day, first the author Virginia Woolf herself, in the 1920s, then Laura Brown, a housewife in mid-century, and the third Clarissa Vaughan, a present-day New Yorker. Over this long period of time there is naturally a striking change in the lifestyle of the women depicted. This change is echoed, but to a lesser extent, in the psychological development of the characters.
The film is a clear illustration of the profound difficulties experienced by certain types of individual, whom we may term ‘as-if’2 personalities, and the effect these personalities have on the lives of those closest to them. ‘As-if’ personalities present peculiar difficulties in analysis, which are better explored in relation to the book than to the film as the latter is less subtle and departs in some important respects from the text.
The ‘as-if’ personality
The term ‘as-if’ personality was first used by Hélène Deutsch3 to describe certain analytic patients whom she was seeking to understand. These were patients whose manner of life and relationships lack genuineness and yet appear to proceed as-if they are ‘normal’. Closer observation reveals that at the heart of this disorder there is an emptiness and a lack of warmth. All genuine inner experience is missing, including the capacity to love. In her study, Deutsch