Analyzing Holden Caulfield's 'Catcher In The Rye'

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IDENTIFYING DATA AND REASON FOR REFERRAL: Holden Caulfield is a 16 year old adolescent male, who has been reffered for a psychological assessment to determine his intellectual and emotional status. Holden was enrolled into Pency Prep School. Despite his positive grades in English, he was falling behind in the system for his other subjects and was unerolled from Pency. Holden has a history of poor academic performances whilst at school. Despite his attendance to private schools, he has failed to apply himself and failed to succeed academically. The contributing factors may include learning problems and complex family dynamics. SOURCES OF INFORMATION Background information was obtained from his principal Mrs Thurmer, his former teacher at …show more content…

His ability to maintain motivation in his schoolwork is a large concern, with a large number of popular schools expelling Holden because his low scores and failing to apply himself to his learning to improve his grades. Holden isolates himself from others and alienates himself from the world because of people’s lack of understanding of him. Holden has expressed to me how ‘after a night out, he did not have particular luck in socialising, and felt so depressed that he wishes he was dead.’ This indicates that Holden may have autistic tendencies because of his spontaneous and dramatic bursts of insight and ideas that de does not give proper thought to before presentation. As well as tendencies and an exaggerated view of reality, as well as struggling to remain on topic. Holden retold a incident with a teacher whilst visiting them. He explained that he ‘woke up to Mr Anotolini creepily patting him on the forehead, Holden revealed that similar “perverty” stuff happened to him as a child’. This possibly links to his justification to alienate himself from others. Also possible link to trauma or depression as

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