Chariot of Fire- Motivation

Chariots of fires follows two driven individuals who are compelled to success yet are motivated by entirely different reasons. Motivation explains how certain behaviour are started, directed and continued to meet the needs of the individual. We can see that these men’s needs exceed expectations as they strive to accomplish a near impossible goal.

Taking a look at first at Harold Abrahams, we can see that his driving force is succeeding in the face of adversity. Under Jewish decent, Abrahams was put under a lot of hardships as he had to work twice as hard to prove that he was indeed a representative of England and what it has to offer. Although the scrutiny Abrahams suffered from was subtle it was constantly present but it only leads to him performing even better to prove that he is not just an English man but one to be admired. After losing for the first time we can see that Abrahams starts to develop an external locus of control as he contemplates quitting due to the belief that he has done everything in his power yet is still not good enough. Until he is able to see that more work and drive was required to justify his arrogant attitude.

Eric Liddell on the other hand is devout to his religion and has the belief that god made him fast therefore he should use his talent. We can see that there is a lot more to this than religion as winning feels good to everyone but when confronted with this issue of testing his faith with his individual desires we can see that he keeps a firm stance towards his religion. Even after winning he doesn’t stop to cherish his achievement with the whole world but continues his work as a missionary in China. We can see that his overall motivation lies with the words of god as opposed to fulfilling his own desires.

Both individual are intrinsically motivated as they are not driven for any external rewards but to fulfil their inner needs for achievement whether it is running and/or religion.  We can see that the expectancy-value theory most applies here as the strong beliefs and values of both individuals exceed that of most others and fulfilling their needs.

Schindler’s List

Nazi Germany was run through the rule of fear, as many atrocities were committed as the lure of power appears to become to overpowering in certain situations. The use of Jew as scapegoat’s for Germany’s shortcomings after WWI lead them to slave like conditions where shooting one would be used as incentive to make the others work faster.

Obedience and compliance are recurring themes throughout this time period as many German soldiers would exploit their power in cruel ways. Amon Goeth is the perfect example as he expects obedience, he expects the Jews to act upon his direct orders and the expectations he requires otherwise he will make an example out of the individual. This begs to question how an individual became so sinister and when did this take place. Phillip Zimbardo’s prison experiment helps explain how certain roles people are placed in make them express behaviours they normally would not express. In his experiment the participants who had the role of prison guards expressed means of violence and punishment when their sense of power was threated. This can directly apply to the case of Amon Goeth through the countless aimless murders throughout the film.

Amon Goeth was only one of many German soldiers who expressed the same displaced hatred towards the Jews and peformed countless acts of cruelty. However some soldiers were just carrying out orders. Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment that shows that the patients will electrocute others under the direct command of an authority figure. In the experiment the electric shocks increased gradually until they eventually became lethal. This too can be related to the time as the persecution of Jew happened on incremental levels, starting with banning from owning a business and ending with their death.

We can see that not all Germans felt the same way about the Jews as Oskar Schindler was one of the few who saw an opportunity to create a business through the use of the new work force to fulfil his selfish desires. However as the story proceeds we can see that Oskar starts to witness what happens to the Jews first hand, as the use of colour was first used when the SS started to brutally round up the Jews and force them into labour camps. The thought that he was providing some sort of a refuge against the atrocities also helped him realize he was doing a little bit of good.

Self-Actualizing Will Hunting

Will Hunting has a truly unique gift of eidetic memory (also known as photographic memory) giving him access to his all his visual memories for a lot longer than our short-term memories can sustain, in his case his memory appears to be lifelong. However intelligent this makes him it does have a down side as he can remember even the most traumatic experiences he wishes to forget and those that keep on leading him into trouble, in turn preventing him from truly growing. In order to avoid being convicted Will was sent to a series of psychiatrist who applied their schools of thought’s treatment on Will, however Will’s knowledge in all these areas lead him to toy with the professional’s acts of reaching out to Will. A last resort by a psychology school teacher, Sean Maguire, takes an unconventional approach by trying to form a relationship with his patient.

In this case self-disclosure is used on Sean’s side, as well as meeting outside of therapy, aggression and forming emotional connections with the client, all of which is viewed to be unethical between the therapist-patient relationships. These behaviours are somewhat shunned upon as they can in some cases lead to transference, where the patients start to unconsciously relate the feelings and attitudes of significant others on to the therapist. In Will’s case we can see that a more unconventional approach is required, perhaps why this approach was taken by Sean. Looking at Sean Self-disclosing to Will we can see that it had a disclosure reciprocity effect, as Sean reveals something about himself Will starts to do the same. As we get to know Will more we can start to see that perhaps all he really does require is a true friend who can listen and understand him and vice versa.

This form of therapy is most similar to person-centered therapy, as it main focus is on the patient’s growth. Taking an arbitrary look at Will’s growth on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs we can see that Will is unable to develop past the belongingness and love needs, as his past had no positive significant others preventing him from reaching out to others. We can see that due to this lack of development in interferes with his subsequent needs of self-esteem and lack of application of his cognitive abilities in turn preventing him from self-actualizing. Until he’s gotta see about a girl.

When a man loves a woman- road to recovery

We can see that Alice Green is perhaps not as happy with life as she made out to be as her Husband Michael only became aware of her issue with Alcohol when the situation became too extreme. After Alice came back from rehabilitation we can see that she is still in a very fragile state and remains unsure about many things. Alcoholism is a lifelong disease that one must battle against every day, something that Michael fails to see, “let’s get you better so it will never happen again”, implying that it can be completely cured. The relationship with Michael does not improve even though he seems to be working round the clock to make her get better so she can come back to their normal life.  This is perhaps the reason why Alice asks for a separation, as Michael does not see that the reason why she got involved with alcohol in the first place was due to the constraints of their normal life and now that she is recovering Michael restricts her from having any room to grow and rebuild what she had lost. In many cases people on the road to recovery tend to feel depressed and lonely hence why support groups like AA meetings and sponsors are used to help people in Alice’s and Michael’s situation. They provide constant support in the form of trusting relationships where people truly listen to what each other has to say with minimal judgment, which in turn provides comfort and understanding through empathy. However this can only work if the individuals are responsive to the change that must take place in order to understand the ups and downs of recovery. It is important to understand both the disorder and the process of recovery in order to help the individual work their way back into their own lives. Even with this in mind many people fall back into the bad habbits even with the best of help.

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/The-Road-to-Recovery.html