Smart People, Geekines Ensues

Viewed irritating Smart People, and was consequently compelled to watch again only slightly irritating Good Will Hunting. SP lacked the aesthetic chops of GWH (the former full of caricatures & contrivances, but it was geeky fun to see such a clear example of copy process* in the overachieving, misanthropic-but-lonely daughter), but the ending was more plausible. There was no indication that the wounded, once basically capable, interpersonally pricklish professor experienced major personality change, only that he finally thawed some as a result of important relationships. "Will Hunting", on the other hand, went from emotionally broken to 'healed' and gloriously in love in what was portrayed as only a few months. But his character didn't merely need a thaw, he needed long term, interpersonal, reconstructive therapy, which, of course, is incompatible with a movie timetable. The therapy wasn't "bad" per se, but the catharsis model (muck about until the traumas are uncovered and at last have a good, healing cry) doesn't work so well. Certainly not for changing the 'wiring'. And certainly not a helpful ending for us saps who get all dreamy over the intellectually gifted but emotionally/interpersonally bereft.





*Excerpt from abstract: Studies connecting childhood experience and adult psychopathology often focus on consequences of abuse and neglect. Copy process theory (Benjamin, 2003) states that constructive as well as destructive experiences shape adult behavior with surprising interpersonal specificity. Childhood perceptions and social learning are encoded in memory and then “copied” in 3 basic ways in subsequent relationships: Identification (behaving as he or she behaved), Recapitulation (behaving as one behaved when with him or her), and Introjection (treating oneself as he or she was treated). From Critchfield, K.L. & Benjamin, L.S (2008). Internalized representations of early interpersonal experiences and adult relationships: A test of copy process theory in clinical and non-clinical settings. Psychiatry: Interpersonal & Biological Processes, 71, 1, 71-92.