Good Will Hunting And John Bowlby's Attachment Theory

In the film Good Will Hunting, the main character Will Hunting is an intelligent young man in his early twenties. Will is immensely intelligent because he has photographic memory however; he appears to have a complex consistent behavior that has negatively impacted his live. Will is an orphan who has been in many foster homes with abusive care givers. His only family is his best friend Chucky, and his boys. Throughout the film Will demonstrates his complex behavior in different scenes. Erick Erikson’s stage theory and John Bowlby’s attachment theory help explain Will’s personality and behavior.
According to Erickson’s stage theory, there are stages in life where one must resolve conflicts, called ego crisis that start in infancy and end when one dies. When the ego crisis is unresolved, the crisis continues on to the next stage and so on. According to Erickson the successful resolved stages are essential for a person’s growth. The first stage is infancy where the ego crisis is trust versus mistrust. Will seems to have not resolved this stage do to his mistrust in romantic relationships. In addition to his pessimistic views and fear

abandonment.
Erikson’s faith stage happens around the teenage years and the ego crisis is identity versus role confusion. In this stage had to do with adolescents trying to figure out who they are and who they want to become. For example, this could be trying to figure out a career path. Throughout the film Will seems to be unsure of what to do career wise, he has pessimistic views about the jobs interviews Professor Lambeau sets up for Will. The first instance happened when he sent Chucky to the job interview and the second instance happened when he was in a job interview with the National Security Agency. In addition, there was a scene when he was in therapy and his therapist Sean asked him what he wanted to do and Will told him he wanted to be a shepherd instead of admitting that he didn’t know what he wanted to do. Will also demonstrated arrogance in his personality as way to avoid taking about his problems. One can see this in scene where he was with Professor Lambeau and Will humiliated professor Lambeau by telling him that he didn’t want to spend his time explaining math problems to people.
In Erikson’s sixth stage around early adulthood the ego crisis becomes intimacy versus isolation. According to Erikson in this stage, young adults begins to form romantic relationships and the inability to form a deep relationship without losing one’s self can lead to isolation or superficial relationships. In the film Will begins to date Skyler, Will hesitates to call Skylar after their first date. Will ultimately ends up pushing Skylar way when Skylar asked him to go with her to California. Will’s fear of abandonment and defense mechanism are clearly shown in this scene. He pushes her away before she pushes him away.
Bowlby’s attachment theory argues that one is born with an innate need to attach to a main care giver.

Specifically with the bond with the mother is essential in the first years of life according to Bowlby. According to Bowlby the failure to receive this bond with a care giver can result in increased aggression, delinquency, depression, and inability to show affection. In the beginning of the film Will gets into a fight with his kindergarten bully and soon after the quarrel begins the police arrive and arrest Will. During the fight one notices the increased aggression and rage inside Will. Will also shows the inability to fully express his feelings for Skylar due to his fear of her leaving. In addition, in a scene where Will is I court the judge list all the times Will got arrested for fights and resisting arrest among other

things.
In addition, Will demonstrates high arousal when asked about his childhood. One intense is when Skylar told him he lied about have twelve brothers and he got defensive and the rage was clearly visible. The second instance was when he was in therapy with his therapist Sean and they shared some memories of their abusive care givers and Sean told Will it wasn’t his fault and at first Will seemed to get aggressive because he shoved Sean but ended letting go of the pain by crying.