Ordinary People

This research examines the motion picture Ordinary People from the standpoint of the psychotherapeutic helping relationship it depicts. The research will set forth the narrative context in which the relationship is established in the film and then discuss the counselor's behavior in its most and least helpful modes. Additionally, the research will examine cultural-diversity issues that emerge over the course of the film that have the effect of deepening its social and psychological verisimilitude.

The principal line of action in Ordinary People that gets the story to the point of depicting a counseling/helping relationship is governed by adolescent Conrad's difficulty adjusting to the sailing-accident death of his older brother Bucky. At the point of dramatic attack, Conrad has just returned home from a psychiatric hospital, in the wake of his suicide attempt in guilt over surviving the accident that killed his brother. Ostensibly, Conrad, his father Calvin, and his mother Beth each seem to want nothing so much as to get things back to normal, to resume their upper-middle-class suburban Chicago life. But of course "back to normal" is impossible, and in any case "normal" for the Jarrett family turns out to have been a veneer of privileged, comfortable, and superficial emotional experience masquerading as a full and loving family and civic life. Conrad's suicide attempt has damaged the veneer because it has brought troubling emotions and the dynamics of long-unresolved family

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n the other (45). Further, Berger does not "correct" Conrad's desire for more control, i.e., is not judgmental about but is respectful of client statements (33). At the same time, he suggests that Conrad can go about the hard job of asserting control in gradual steps, talking about his actions and letting the feelings come in when they will (Sargent). This strategy is also consistent with Okun's statement of the need for counselor self-awareness and having "personal experience of the process of human development . . . and to know firsthand the impact of societal, cultural, and familial influences on behavior" (Okun 43). To put it another way: The shrink has seen it all before and knows that it is best for a client to achieve insight and awareness in his own good time. It is because of his expertise--more implied than stated in the film--that Berger engages in the dynamics of what might be called tough counselor love. Initially, Conrad makes very clear that he wants to stop feeling pain, and regaining control of his life, as he thinks, is his way of doing this. That desire also helps explain evidence of Conrad's serious attempt to fit in at school. He finds solace and comfort in conversations with fellow mental patient Karen, whos

Category: Film - O