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.