As humans, we have a fear of not being liked by others. We thrive on building meaningful relationships with others. We learn at a young age how to connect with others and we learn that as humans, we need social interactions to survive. I will be examining the relationship between Will Hunting (Matt Damon) and his therapist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) in the movie Good Will Hunting.
Good Will Hunting is about a character named Will Hunting who was abused as a child and went through many foster homes. Because of his rough childhood, Will has a built-in defense mechanism causing him to distance himself from others, hindering his ability to open up and trust others. Will blames himself for the way his life is and therefore is unable to commit to a meaningful job or relationship. Will is extremely intelligent and is a mathematical prodigy.
Working as a janitor in a high school, Will begins solving very difficult mathematical problems that very few can solve and is then discovered by the mathematics professor who needed two years to solve the same problem. The professor then tries to guide Will to find himself and to use his abilities to do something with his life instead of wasting his abilities. Realizing that Will is not accepting the help, he takes him to his old friend Psychotherapist Sean Maguire who quickly sees through Wills defense mechanisms and breaks through them little by little.
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When it comes to choosing our friends, there are three factors that I want to talk about that we are influenced by. We choose our friends based on how much they like us, how close and how often we see them, and how similar they are to us (Aronson,305). The first factor I want to expand on is proximity which is closeness. We are more likely to connect and like someone who is close to us. Aside from just that, proximity also creates repeated contact with someone, and you are more likely to like someone if you see them daily.
In Good Will Hunting, Maguire brings up the fact that both him and Will are from South Boston which they referred to as “southies”. With repeated exposure, Will began to open up and share things that he did not before. During the first visits, Will would say nothing as he just watched the clock on the wall counting the time left for their session to be over.
As time went on and Will saw Sean more, he would open conversations with him and treat him like his friend. Another factor that contributes to the way individuals choose their friends is similarity. Will and Sean are very similar which contributes to why they became friends. Will and Sean both have a common interest in reading books and lifting weights. The most important similarity between Will and Sean is that they had both been abused as children. The common experiences forces Will to see Sean as a human being rather than another psychologist trying to fix him.
Once Will can see that Sean is someone he can relate to, he can start to accept the help he has offered. Another similarity that they have is that they are both afraid to go out into the real world and experience new things. Maguire tells Will that he has learned things from books but has not experienced things in real life. Although Maguire has experienced life, he reveals that he lost his wife two years ago to cancer. After losing his wife to cancer, he seems to have given up. In a scene from the movie they show how his house is messy and they show us that he does not socialize with his old friends (doesn’t go to college reunions).
While teaching Will a lesson about life, he also takes his own advice and decides to travel the world and attend the next college reunion instead of putting his life on hold. Another factor I mentioned in how we choose who to have a relationship with is by looking at how much they like us. Will saw many therapists before meeting with Sean and they all gave up on him after he showed no interest in them. During the first session, Will tries to play the same card by upsetting Sean by telling him that he chose the wrong woman to marry.
Even after upsetting him and disrespecting his wife, Sean saw something in Will and decided to carry on with the sessions. This showed Will that not everyone will give up on him and that Sean did in fact like him. Another interesting concept in their friendship was when Sean shared a private detail about his marriage with his wife which relates to self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is when we reveal private information about ourselves that would otherwise not be acknowledged (Aronson, 337).
When you disclose private information about yourself, it shows vulnerability and it allows individuals around you to feel closer to you. Sean disclosed that his wife would fart in her sleep and that he loved her more because of her imperfections. By disclosing this information with Will, it caused an emotional response in him that lead to a growth in their friendship. Disclosing this information, even if it was just a silly little fact, instilled a feeling of trust in their relationship.
As I mentioned before, growing up, Will was abused. Will was never told that he was smart, intelligent, or capable of being loved. He never learned how to trust people because the very own people who were supposed to support him and love him, had left him and neglected him. He grew up blaming himself for the abuse and always felt that he was never good enough.
Will also has no empathy for others except the close group of friends he associates himself with and does not know how to manage his emotions- especially anger. Because he never learned to control negative emotions, committing to meaningful relationships becomes difficult, (Aronson, 333). If he disagrees with someone, he will assault them either verbally or physically. Since Will grew up with a very disorganized attachment style in a home with neglect and abuse, his emotional needs were not met. Will has learned to accept negative outcomes from relationships and always feels like people will leave him.
For example, in the movie Will has a love interest, Skylar, who asks him to move to California with her and he gets defensive. He gets angry and accuses Skylar that she will end up leaving him once she finds something that she does not like about him and will not want to be with him anymore. She goes on to confess her love for him and he does not believe her and tells her that she is lying and even goes as far as avoiding his own feelings that he towards her and pushes her away by telling her that he does not love her. This leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy mindset. For example, Will might think “I’m not good enough so my parents beat me and neglected me therefore Skylar will abandon me as well.”
In the movie, it is depicted that Will has been brought up with an ambivalent attachment style. He pushes people away and does not trust easily. I think that the more sessions that Will had with Sean, the more his attachment style shifted. In a way, Sean become the caregiver that Will never had. Will has never experienced real love or intimacy and Sean taught him that by letting him into the details of his own marriage. Sean also shares many memories and experiences that Will would have had, had he been raised in a secure household. Another very important concept that Sean displays for Will that is very important to their relationship is empathy. Empathy is putting yourself in another’s persons place to see things from their perspective and feel their feelings and experience (Aronson, 245).
The most powerful scene in the movie is when Sean and Will both talk about their experiences with physical abuse by their fathers. In this scene, Sean empathized with Will by listening to his feelings and putting himself in his shoes as well. He continues to tell him that it is not his fault over and over until he finally, truly understands that he is not to blame for the abuse. This finally breaks the barrier that Will has built up and allows him to move forward, leaving all the feelings of shame, anger, and guilt in the past. The friendship between Will and Sean led Will to adapt a more secure attachment which was displayed by him leaving to California to pursue his romantic relationship.
In conclusion, this movie was a very good depiction of an interpersonal relationship along with the effect that parental attachment styles can have on children. Children need to have secure attachment styles from their caregivers in order to have the self-confidence needed to build interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal relationships are very important to our well-being. Not only are they an important factor in keeping us happy, they are also an important factor in keeping us healthy (Aronson, 302).
