Synopsis
“Will Hunting”, is an eponymous American film directed by Gus Van Sant in 1997. The work tells the story of a gifted young man, with a difficult childhood and adolescence. Witty and impulsive, Will is a complex character who gets into a lot of trouble with the law. While he manages to assimilate enormous amounts of knowledge through books, which he reads as a self-taught, he does not use this knowledge to improve his condition, spending his “apparent” time drinking and fighting … While employed as a sweeper at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he is noticed by Gerald Lambeau, a Fields Medal winning mathematician, by quickly solving a very difficult equation. Impressed by Will’s potential, the professor proposes to him to plead his case before the judge, before whom he must appear soon, but formulates two conditions: that Will participates in the scientific work of MIT, and that he accepts a psychotherapeutic follow-up with Sean Maguire, a psychologist and former friend. Very quickly, the therapeutic relationship will become the central element and catalyst of the action.
Analysis of the therapeutic relationship
- The transfer
Transfer, the process by which unconscious desires are actualized on certain objects, is at the heart of the therapeutic relationship. On many occasions, the encounter between the two protagonists stages transferential and counter-transferential movements, allowing the expression of Will’s problematic. It will go through the reactivation (or repetition) of unconscious conflicts. We can see this, in particular, through the cleavage, observable in the opposing feelings expressed by Will from one session to the next, or even from one moment to the next. “Beating cold or beating hot, borderline madness subjects the transfer to the most extreme climatic variations, from the most ethereal detachment to the most primitive passion, between glaciation and volcanic eruption” (André, 2015)1. André refers to the hypothesis that in adults with borderline organization, such as Will’s, everything happens as if the unconscious psychic activity, the one working in transference, does not play its role in controlling and integrating primary impulsive ambivalence. Thus, Will’s psyche would be unable to process and transform the good and bad experiences coming out of relationships. In the young man, the defense mechanism puts into the present what may have happened and generated suffering in his childhood history, such as violence. It can then be difficult to tolerate, on the therapist’s side, the hostility that manifests itself in the negative transference. The practitioner’s excesses of anger, during the first sessions, testify to this. This type of therapeutic relationship therefore requires the psychologist to be able to “give something good and receive something bad in return” (Kernberg, 2001, p. 91)2. This is the case when Sean meets with Will a second time and agrees to help him despite the young man’s assaults. Thus, the clinician may be exposed to aggressive projections that make it necessary to work on oneself in order to assume the position of a bad object.
It can also be seen that Will tends to take advice from the therapist (as a child in demand), who in turn takes a paternalistic stance. It is possible to think that, at this moment, an emotional behaviour is shifting from an infantile object (here the parental figure) to another person (here the psychologist). In the film, everything suggests that Will identifies with this paternal image: that of Professor Lambeau, who is rather reasoned: “go in the right direction, don’t waste your chances, exploit your potential”. This image is both necessary and insufficient because it alienates Will from a will that is not his own. But also the image of the therapist who seems liberating, advocating confidence, in the idea of a reconstruction, to be able to love and be loved. This liberating strategy leads Will, not to do what others would like him to do (continue to play defenses against reality) but to choose his own path: “do what your heart dictates and everything will be fine”. This amounts to emancipation from the two parental figures. We can make the connection with the notion of the false self behind which Will would be entrenched. Professor Lambeau’s parental image would embody submitting to what Will thinks he guesses is the other person’s desire for him. But this false-self rests on nothing except emptiness (very present in Will). Indeed, the young man is pseudo-independent, maintaining relationships based on his own idea of them, missing the meeting for fear of displeasing or not being loved. Thus, his authentic being or “true self” would be buried behind an arrogant contempt for introspection (Zucker, 2012)3.
- The counter-transference
What is particularly interesting are the phenomena of counter-transfer in response to these movements. The therapist seems to identify himself in response to the young man. Indeed, we learn that they share many common points: they have lived in the same working-class neighborhoods and suffered the same violence. One can thus think that these elements can only bring them closer together psychologically. The most explicit sentence of this counter-transfer remains the last word addressed to Will by the psychologist: “good luck son”. This fact leads us to reflect on the importance of carrying out a self-analysis. In this precise case, it would allow the practitioner to remain in a position of neutrality ensuring the therapeutic follow-up without being invaded by his own feelings. It seems necessary to understand the unconscious conflicts reactivated here (the therapist’s childhood traumas), his reactions towards Will (the will to father him), the transfer carried out by the patient sending him back to his own defense mechanisms, but also the reality of the patient who is not aware of these transferential movements. Counter-transferential analysis is, therefore, an important indicator in the understanding of transfer and the therapeutic relationship.
1 André, J., & Thompson, C. (2002). Transfert et états limites. Paris, France : Presses Universitaires de France.
2 Kernberg, O. 2001. Les troubles limites de la personnalité, Paris, France : Dunod.
3 Zucker, D. (2012). Pour introduire le faux self. Dans : , D. Zucker, Penser la crise: L’émergence du soi (pp. 19-21). Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique: De Boeck Supérieur.
« Words we have learned »
- Sweeper = balayeur
- from the most ethereal detachment to the most primitive passion =du détachement le plus éthéré à la passion la plus primitive
- an emotional behaviour is shifting from an infantile object = déplacement d’une conduite émotionnelle par rapport à un objet infantile
- his own path: son propre chemin
- would embody submitting = incarneraient de se soumettre
- emptiness = le vide
- fear of displeasing = la crainte de déplaire
- to remain in a position of neutrality ensuring the therapeutic follow-up = de rester dans une position de neutralité assurant le suivi thérapeutique