Good Will Hunting depicts a link between a therapist and Will Hunting, a janitor. The relationship is addressed as an important approach for promoting the teaching of counseling theories. Good Will Hunting reveals the story of a young man with troubled marriages and anger management problems and compares his path of spiritual development with that of his psychiatrist. Will Hunting, depicted as a genius, is motivated by a math professor at a renowned university to pursue a career in mathematics, while his advisor urges him to follow his heart to achieve his destiny. However, not only does this film depict counseling as ultimately successful, but it also portrays the psychologist as a loving human being trying to transcend his suffering (Corredor et al., 2020). The film provides a reasonably comprehensive and credible role of the therapy method in psychotherapy based on the cultural environment of a client and a counselor.
To persuade the patient to collaborate, Sean employed the free association theory. Sean Maguire was a psychologist who was willing to communicate for Will to make him learn a variety of things. Maguire made his client feel comfortable through a variety of therapy concepts. First, he attempted to behave like Will Hunting. This became a successful technique as it allowed him a chance to rebound from his anxiety. Will’s hostility and disgust may be described as a defensive mechanism. Thus, it can be inferred that any action therapy performed, every phrase he spoke was one of the therapeutic methods he used to help the patient unlock his vision. Behaving like a client, using the same terms, acting similarly, speaking the same manner, were the key strategies that made it easier for Sean to do his work.
The fundamental aspect of intimate relations and communicative experiences with others is mainly focused on feelings. In the film, characters encounter multiple feelings that impair their social interactions and conversational experiences. Keeping in mind that each character has grown up with a diverse lifestyle, their intimate connections and communicative experiences have been influenced over the years. The film helps highlight various traits in each personality and how their feelings influence the way they interact.
The film shows the role of contact in a therapy partnership by highlighting the coping techniques between people. Will is an orphan, and he’s had a tough childhood. As a result, he has a communication problem and cannot interact with other people or even his relatives (Pfeiffer & Prado, 2018). His tough childhood affected him creating barriers in his social life. Thus, the counselor helps him loosen his social barriers and learn how to empathize with others for a better quality of life.
Interpersonal engagement is emphasized in the film as communication is the only way through which people can share thoughts and feelings and connect with others. Through communication, people can interpret both vocal and non-verbal signals to show positive feedback. Good listening and speaking are effective attitude characteristics, which enhance interpersonal contact. Will lacks this skill, which does not allow him to easily connect with others (Corredor et al., 2020). Interpersonal contact is typically dyadic in a person’s everyday life, which implies that it happens more frequently. Connection is important because people who speak can empathize with each other. When a partnership evolves between two individuals, contact is collaborative and they have complex conversations when they get to know each other. When partnerships grow and evolve, contact provides the details as to whether the sender or receiver is trustworthy or not, or whether they are the people one wishes to know better (Pfeiffer & Prado, 2018). Environmental discussions take place in the sense of contact because communication in a counselor’s office is more professional than in another setting. In particular, a counseling environment can influence a client to share thoughts and feelings more comfortably.
Interpersonal dynamics is a critical skill in therapy, as demonstrated in the film. Will Hunting is a strong listener, which means he can sense, and he understands the nature of the conversation that occurs in a social environment. However, he cannot express himself in a way that would encourage him to reciprocate. Thus, the film illustrates why he is busy attempting to prevent himself from hearing his thoughts, or he does not want to send signals that could expose his fears. Socially appropriate engagement is the skill that Will needs to master. He and his friends are close, but they do not have meaningful communication with each other.
Will is also mean to Sean during the first three weeks following his referral to counseling. He uses the conversation to divert pressure away from his nature and his issues. The reason is that Sean is struggling with the loss of his child. He understands that Sean’s loss is a catalyst to ensure that he avoids any efforts to connect with his friend using the nuances of the therapist and the patient. The therapist utilizes a range of verbal methods to attempt to communicate with his client. The most effective one is when the counselor changes the setting for their appointments; instead of meeting at Sean’s office, they meet in the park. Equally, instead of sitting facing each other across a desk, they sit on a park bench facing the lakeside. The posture is appropriate in counseling as it minimizes anxiety and encourages sharing. The entire sense of their former contact is left behind in this current world. The two men begin to connect in a constructive manner, which is vital for Will’s social skills development.
Sean identifies strategies to uncover his client’s suspicions. He uses their common interest as a framework for developing a sense of understanding. The strategies include baseball and sharing ideas. Since Sean has the same socio-economic history as his client, he is best able to emphasize Will’s struggles and emotions (Tesalonika, 2017). He is still willing to accept Sean because they come from a similar background and they have much in common, they do not need to go through a time of symbol decoding to understand each other. In other words, Sean allows Will to finally express his social skills by finding some commonalities.
Chuckie has been Will’s best friend since they were children, but they have not spoken about the crucial choices which have to be taken in life. Chuckie seems more comfortable with holding a meaningful discussion than his friend, but he has understood Will’s choice not to speak about such topics (Tesalonika, 2017). It has become general knowledge that he has been through many challenges. Will is turned from a bitter, frustrated guy who cannot determine his issues, to a happier, self-confident person. Learning to express himself and knowing what people were doing was the way he began to comprehend the world and the method which helped him cure all of his old wounds. Sean was eventually able to appreciate Will’s defenses by utilizing communication as a weapon. Instead of using confrontation to protect them, Will learns healthier coping abilities by the end of the film.
The film shows egos and how they can influence individuals in their everyday lives. Will did not have an ideal childhood, since he was an orphan. Because of his background, Will, an unrecognized visionary, serves as a school concierge as part of a bail deal after murdering a police officer. He was exploited as an infant, and he communicates this neglect and aggression in his adult life. When mopping the ground, Will solved a variety of physics theorems on a chalkboard in the corridor, prompting Nobel Prize winner Lambeau to search for him.
Personality explanations are useful for clinicians when it comes to recognizing the patterns which are linked to an attempt to identify the challenges of people with negative behaviors. Professionals are obligated to evaluate, diagnose, and manage a person as the theoretical approach has been developed. Good Will Hunting depicts the abuse which Will Hunting witnessed as a boy and also reveals how it influenced him as an adult. In the established causes, Will is a mental talent with an overabundance of intellect. Hunting has several contrasting personality characteristics which can lead to the reality that there is more to his imagination than just his logical intelligence. The client reveals several improvements in the film, from self-destructive habits to the desire to form healthy behaviors. Cognition is characterized as the knowledge which processes weather, mental functioning, intellectual activity or thought, reasoning, recalling, dreaming, or studying. Increased experiments have been undertaken to analyze the attitude traits of cognitive aging. People who participate in elevated amounts of mental stimulus show a slower pace of cognitive impairment than the individuals who do not participate much in cognitive skills but who participate in more intellectual stimulation demonstrate complex cognitive capacity in general.
References
Corredor, J., Álvarez-Rivadulla, M. J., & Maldonado-Carreño, C. (2020). Good Will Hunting: Social integration of students receiving forgivable loans for college education in contexts of high inequality. Studies in Higher Education, 45(8), 1664-1678.
Pfeiffer, S. I., & Prado, R. M. (2018). Counseling the gifted: Current status and prospects. In Handbook of Giftedness in Children (pp. 299-313). Springer, Cham.
Tesalonika, T. (2017). The types and purposes of swear words in goodwill hunting movie [Doctoral Dissertation]. Sanata Dharma University.