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I have to write a paper over a character from hamlet, give a diagnoses of a disorder, and explain why with quotation.  I really need help because i do not understand hamlet at all!

With his mood swings and exaggerated introspection, Hamlet displays a bipolar personality type with neurotic tendencies and symptoms of depression. If Hamlet had indeed only been hearing and seeing things without them really being there, he would suffer from schizophrenia. After the appartiton of his father's ghost, Hamlet is indeed afraid that it was just in his mind and doubts his own sanity. Some analysts say he also had a "thing" for his mother - an Oedipus complex of sorts that angers him to see Claudius replace his father rather than himself. (Personally, I think this is stretching it too far.)

If anybody is indeed crazy in this play, it would be Ophelia, who wanders off, singing nonsense rhymes and literally "going off the deep end" when she drowns. Whether this is suicide or simply an accident remains an enigma (but the former is strongly suggested). This kind of affectation suggests hysteria, for a long time (long after Shakespeare) considered exclusively a feminine mental disorder.

As Gertrude regrets her choice but does nothing about it other than feel guilty, she suffers from neurosis, as Hamlet. This disorder results from unresolved guilt and the inability to reconcile one's thoughts with one's actions. When the conscious is no longer pricked, as with Claudius, it degenerates into a psychosis. Claudius seems too deliberate and scheming to have passed through all these stages, but he is definitely a sociopath, looking good on the outside but perverted from within.

Check out the terms highlighted in dark print. Hope this gets you off to a good start.

The above post is fairly dead on about the levels of neurosis in the play.  I think the above post's explanation of Ophelia is particularly compelling.  About fifteen years ago or so a book came out entitled Reviving Ophelia.  The primary idea of the book called for a new approach to understanding adolescent girls and how we raise them.  I think using Ophelia in the title, given the topic, really spoke to how psychologically profound Ophelia's depiction is in the play and how rich her character was depicted.  I found it interesting that the searching for identity that Ophelia undergoes in the play is something that is a significant psychological dimension to modern adolescent girls.

Hamlet's behavior really does demonstrate depression, and who would blame him for feeling depressed? His father has died suddenly and unexpectedly and his mother has married his uncle. By the time he gets home, Hamlet realizes his father's death is very suspicious, to say the least. Then his girlfriend dies and his two best friends are employed to kill him. Who wouldn't be depressed?

Three symptoms of depression are the inability to think clearly, the inability to make a decision, and the inability to act. Those who are severely depressed are trapped by feelings of powerlessness and lethargy; frequently, they do not even realize they are depressed. They simply suffer, unable to break out of their depression on their own. All of these symptoms certainly fit Hamlet and his behavior.

Indubitably, Hamlet is depressed.  In fact, his depression seems to parallel the depression of many in our times who witness the hypocrisy and treachery of politicians and coworkers and, even "friends" such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It has been documented that clinical psychiatrists claim that anyone who is realistic about the state of things, is diagnosed as depressed.  Certainly, Hamlet is realistic about Claudius as a criminal who has slain his father and stolen the affections of his mother; he is realistic about all that "is rotten in Denmark," but he feels helpless to fix it, at least, until he is roused from it by the noble Fortinbras, who is willing to go into a battle that he knows he may not win.  In his final soliloquy, Hamlet remarks,

Witness this army of such mass and charge,/Led by a delicate and tender prince,/Whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed,/Makes mouths at the invisible event,/Exposing what is mortal and unsure/To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,/Even for an eggshell..../O, from this time forth,/My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! (IV,iv,47-66)

In reply to #1:

All the answers are excellent.  Just a point about Ophelia -bullied by men; her father, her brother and Hamlet, and allowed no thoughts or freedoms of her own.   Her psychosis is that of a supressed girl unable to develop her own personality.  When the men around her leave through death etc she is left anchorless, and retreats into her own insane world. 

Marvellously observed by Shakespeare, a psychologist before psychology was invented.

I think Hamlet marks the first time that a character is really torn between the pagan concept of revenge and Christian morality that opposes it.  Up until then, in the plays of Seneca, we've had an eye for an eye mentality.  One of them kills one of us, one of us kills one of them.  Even in other Shakespeare plays, it's worked like that: Macbeth kills Macduff's family, Macduff kills Macbeth.  Even in the supernatural world, a person murdered usually haunts the person who killed him: Banquo is a revenge ghost who sits down at the banquet.

But Hamlet is a departure from all this.  Hamlet's ghost doesn't visit Claudius; he visits Hamlet.  Hamlet could have killed Claudius any number of times, namely at prayer, but he doesn't want to send his soul to heaven.  He's clearly operating in Christian terms.  He's conflicted in doing a pagan act of revenge because it might have consequences in the afterlife.  Not to mention that Christ said to turn the other cheek.  His feigned madness and delays at revenge show signs of spiritual confusion.