Your response to each vignette should be 1-2 pages per vignette for a total of 5-6 pages for the entire assignment plus a title and reference page.
Do not copy and paste the vignettes into your written response

Vignette One
Jack, a 28-year old man, tells you: “Most of my life I have felt pushed and pulled. My father pushed me into school, sports, and so forth, and over the years my resentment grew for him. He was always directing and controlling my life and beating me when I challenged his authority. My mother always gave me a warm, unconditional love and tried to pull me under her protective wing. My parents divorced when I was 18 and without parental control I began a life of self-will in my relationships and in my use of drugs and alcohol. On graduating from college, I rejected my father’s wishes to pursue a career and returned to school to seek another degree. In some ways, it’s just a place to be that I like. Most of my life revolves around living for today, a hedonistic style that has no concreteness of goals and aspirations, with a lack of definition of `what a man should be.’ I float in and out of people’s lives. They see an image of me as disrespectful to women, a drug freak, and a cold human being. My fear is that I am nothing more than that image, that I am empty inside. I want to be able to open up and let people see the warmer, more sensitive sides of me, but I have terrible difficulty doing that. I have a strong need to become close and intimate with others, yet I never let myself become vulnerable because I fear being dependent on them and trapped by their love.”

Assume that Jack comes to you for personal therapy and that all you know about him is what he told you above. Answer the following questions on how you might proceed with Jack within a Psychoanalytic frame of reference:

1. As a psychoanalytic therapist, do you think that Jack’s current unwillingness to become vulnerable to others out of his fear of “being dependent on them and trapped by their love” has much to do with his mother’s unconditional love? How might this experience be related to his relationships with women now?

2. Jack describes his father as an authoritarian, controlling, and cruel man who apparently had conventional ideas of what he wanted Jack to become. What are the underlying psychological aspects that you see involved with Jack’s rejection of his father’s wishes? How might you use psychoanalytic counseling theory to explain the fact that in many ways he became what his father did not want him to become?

ANSWER

Psychoanalytic Frame of Reference

Jack seems trapped between two emotions. His father is abusive, controlling, and authoritative, which Jack loathes and views negatively. However, his mother shows him unconditional love, support, and protection, which he yearns to acquire from his father. Jack yearns for his father’s affection, acceptance, and affirmation the most, which he does not get. Hence, when he does not find that, but his mother provides, he feels weak, taking the love, protection, affection, and acceptance from his mothers. The absence of Jack’s father in his life through a lack of understanding and support topped with excessive control predetermine his current situation. Jack feels trapped by his mother’s love as he needs it and can only get it from his mother. Her love shines the light on his father’s disdain, and having a conflicting mind is likely to affect his relationship with women. Having romantic relationships with women may invoke his mother’s unconditional love that he felt weak to accept. Besides, the lack of knowledge on what being a man entails due to the lack of a father figure may be the most plausible explanation for strained relationships with women.

The underlying psychological aspect involved in the rejection includes the personality difference between Jack and his father. When his father controls his destiny by pushing him to take up activities he did not like, personality differences emerge. This difference develops into resentment, and eventually, Jack feels like an empty vessel lacking life purpose. According to psychoanalytic counseling theory, Jack’s current situation and behavior of lacking a purpose in life, engaging in substance abuse, and leading a hedonistic lifestyle are influenced by his past events, which includes the emotional trap he experiences (Kabir, 2017). His father’s subconscious mind feared his son would not be as successful, thus integrated stringent measures. This approach fails due to the lack of agreement on personality. Pushing and controlling Jack pushed him always instead of drawing him closer, resulting in the current situation.

Reference

Kabir, S. M. (2017). Chapter 6: COUNSELING APPROACHES. In Essentials of Counseling (pp. 117-204). Banglabazar, Dhaka-1100: Abosar Prokashana Sangstha.