Good will hunting PDF

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Summary

good will hunting movie anaylsis...

Description

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Personality is defined as distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling and acting. It refers to a persons unique and stable pattern of thoughts, feelings and actions.

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The study of personality has an extensive and varied history in psychology with an abundance of theories being presented in order to explain the development of personality. These major theories include, psychoanalytic and humanistic.

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In order to explain the behaviour of Will Hunting, the focus will be on Sigmund Freud's' Psychodynamic and Abraham Maslow's' and Carl rogers Humanistic theories of personality.

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Signmund freud in the psycho dynamic theory, we see three parts of psyche being the id, ego and super ego, the psychosexual stages of development and defense mechanisms.

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Maslow introduced the hierarchy of needs that individuals need to fufill their potential.

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Rogers believed there were two basic human needs being self actualisation and positive regard

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Will Hunting is a lowly janitor at MIT and a construction worker, however, he also happens to be a prodigy, possessing a genius-level intelligence and a particular gift for mathematics as well as an eidetic memory.

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Will is an orphan and the product of an abusive, alcoholic foster father who used to burn him with cigarettes and beat him with a wrench. He bounced through the juvenile correction system and various foster homes but lives alone and occupies a great deal of his free time reading through complex subjects.

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He also enjoys solving enormously complicated mathematical equations that are presented as extra credit for MIT students.

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He uses the rest of his time not as productively; drinking and getting into trouble with his friends Chucky, Morgan, and Billy.

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I believe that the judge should consider that will is a far way in his journey into a full functioning person in society and therefore should be released as I will discuss the ways in which hes on his way to a full functioning person in the humanistic personality theory.

Psychodynamic 

Sigmund fraud founded psycho dynamic theory of personality to explain nature of the whole, individual personality, acting in the real world

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Focussed on the idea that personality is made up of conscious and unconscious drives.

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He spilt mind into 3 categories, the id, ego and super ego.

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Each person has biological drive (eating, drinking, sex, aggression) from their id. These need to be satisfied but this is prevented by super ego which uses anxiety and guilt to prevent us from acting on the id’s impulses.

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b/w the two is the ego which tries to find ways to satisfy id in ways that super ego will accept and that is in line with reality

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wills lack of parents make it difficult for him to develop an ego and his super ego was never defined by someone making it evident that the id of will’s psyche was more dominant than his superego and ego as he acted on the aggressive urge of his id to beat up his childhood bully, a socially unacceptable act.

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Towards end of movie, will develops a superego thru gf Skylar and his psychologists, soon he then managed to accept others

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Freud created the psychosexual stages of development beginning with the oral stage – 0-1yrs old where libido is centred in a baby’s mouth

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Freud suggested that oral stimulation could lead to oral fixation later in life such as smoking, nail-biting.

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Next stage is anal stage 1-3 years old where libido becomes centred on the anus and children gain pleasure from defecating

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Next stage of development is known as phallic stage 3-6 years old where libido concentrated on genitals

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The Oedipus complex can be seen in this stage where the child will develop a sexual desire for the opposite sex parent.

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Boys’ starts by developing sexual desire for mother, then becomes jealous of his father who is possessed by his mother. Next the boy is in state of conflict, he deals with this by internalising his father who becomes his superego then the boy substitutes his desire for his mother with the desire for other woman.

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Will becomes stuck in this stage as he lacked the father figure to go thru Oedipus complex.

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This resulted in his behaviour with authority figures, being very aggressive and disrespectful.

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This seen when Will assaults a police officer

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Also shown when wills first encounter with his psychologists involved will telling Sean to “fuck off”

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Will’s gf, Skylar shows mother figure characteristics, includes the amount of love and affection that she gives to will in which he lacked from not having own mum.

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The way that will hasn’t had a father top identify with means he has gotten stuck in phallic stage. Will also shows signs of oral fixation thru his excessive use of smoking and alcohol drinking

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Will aggressiveness is introduced when he attacks his childhood bully at the beginning.

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The reason why will is fixated in the stage, could be dure to his lack of a mother meaning he never got breastfed or nurtured.

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Frued belived that an unhealthy personality was due to the presense of defense mechanisms.

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We are briefed on Will’s troubling childhood throughout the film

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Brought up as orphan in various foster homes where foster father abused him

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He shows signs of unhealthy persomnality based on experiences from the past, often in an emotionally explosive way.

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Evident when sean empasises and repeats statement ‘it wasn’t your fault6’ to will. Repeats the statement attempting to break down barriers will constructed b/w him and others.

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Wills childhood meant that he did not experience a stable and loving family enviromentn and has ‘attachment issues’ and ‘fear of abandonment’.

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Will refuses to let ppl in, triviklising the effect being alone has on his psyche.

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Wills refusal to commit and constant quest for validation of his masculinity – emphasising his sexual prowess at every opportunity, implies that he has regressed to the phallic pysychosexual stage of development.

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Characters of will and sean are very similar, this similarity allows sean to communicate effectively to Will and begin the long process of self acceptance and redemption.

HUMANISTIC

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The first personality theory is the humanistic perspective on personality. Theory was created by Abraham Maslow, he approached the study of personality by focusing on subjective experiences, free will and the innate drive towards self-actualisation.

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Carl rogers defined the healthy personality as being one that had congruence between the perceived self and the experienced self and that the individual in question experiences unconditional positive regard from their parent or guardian. He defined an unhealthy personality as being one who lacked these components.

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Maslow hierarchy of needs rank humans needs from most basic physical needs to most advance needs of self actualisation and become fully functioning person. They must first satisfy all the needs of each level in pyramid before moving onto next level

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From humanistic perspective, will has an unhealthy personality.

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Will experiences asynchrony b/w his perceived and experienced self. The more closely a person’s actual personality matches with the personality they think they have, the more likely they are to have a healthy personality.

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Will belives that he has a healthy per5sonality, which is directly challenged by se4an.

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Will develops a false sense of superiority about his own character as a coping mechanism.

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He refuses to develop lasting relationships with others whyo are not ‘perfedct’ as he is aware that perfect ppl do not exist.

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This mechanism only allows will to, ‘go through life without really knowing anybody.’

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Will also lacked unconditional positiuve regard from parents and gaurdians throughout his childhool and during his adult life.

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His lack of parental love and nurture assisted in his inability to commit and take personaly risks.

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Maslows approach to humanistic psychology wouldr indicate an unhealthy personality that has not reached self actualisation or the fully functioning person as will did not progress from certain stages of the heirachry of needs.

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He had most of the elements for the physiological needs, he lacked major elemjents in the safety of needs. Didn’t have a stable job as he kept getting himself fired, he did not have a family, he living arrangements were precarious and relied on the help of his friends and he lived in a dangerous area.

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He was unable to reach self-actualistaion as he deliberately restricted himself from achieving elements in the safety and love/bvelonging needs.

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He refused to use his talents to obtain work and go to uni

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He refused to open himself up emotionally to others in fear of rejection

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Thus, will hunting has an unhealthy personality from the perspective of 2 personality theories

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In regard to pscho dynamic theory of personality, his experiences from childhool have prevented him fromj acknoqwledging his own emotions and from experiencing committed and healkthy relations with others; masking his insecurities with humour and aggression.

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From the humanistic theory of personality perspective, will refuses to allow himself to achieve all his ps y c hol ogi c alandphy s i cal needsi nor dert obes el f

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In the end, will is shown to be on the path of self actualisation and becoming a full functioning person. Tyhis is shown when he opens up his emotional barrier to sean and goes off to cali to pursue his relationbship with Skylar

Humanist Maslow – hierarchy needs Physiological – has basic need like water, food Safety – has job security, Self esteem – confidence but false, very cocky, has a lot of self hatred “its not your fault” Has his close friends, don’t move himself away from there Moves up the hierarchy from moving away from the boys, becoming more independent Robin Williams character liberates him Frued Fixations Oral aggressive smoking, drinking, violence/aggression, from lack of… breastfeeding, nurturing phallic - oedipal complex - looking for safety, father figure was not loving, absent, violent, abusive, mother image – abandoned, from what we know he didn’t do anything to stop abusive father. Loss about mother image. Gf becomes the acceptance and nurturing figure Fear of castration anxiety self- doubt self centred vanity

psyche -lack of superego - ego – start of film ges driven but his ego - throughout his film his friend, skylar and professor drives his super ego...