I felt that this movie addressed numerous forms of abuse such as verbal, physical, sexual as well as neglect. Her father, resulting in her having two children, sexually abuses Precious. Her mother verbally and physically abuses her at home. Numerous emotions were at play while watching the movie such as anger, sadness, empathy, as well as hope. Precious was able to tackle all the hardships she faced and persevered. She exemplified courage and strength through adversity. Precious had some very influential people in her life, however, which may have saved her life and her children’s lives. Firstly, the principal at her original school noticed Precious and helped her. She could have ignored Precious and moved her along in the school system. Precious would not be as prepared in life and in the job market and potentially leading a similar life to her mother on welfare. After that recommendation the principal gave, the new teacher at her school really cared and really pushed Precious to learn. She was motivating and never gave up, without this teacher Precious may have been lost. Her kindness even helped Precious find housing away from her mother to start a new and better life with her children. The next person that I thought was a great motivator in the film was Precious’s caseworker. She also seemed to care about Precious and did what was in the best interest for her. I believe that with all these people in Precious’s life, she was able to persevere through adversity. She has two children to motivate her, and people who care about her that can help her along the way.
Transference, countertransference, and resistance between Precious and Ms. Rain
Transference is an unconsciously influenced emotional reaction of the patient to the ps...
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...fective needs, impact on the treatment process (Noonan, 1998).
Works Cited
Green, L. (2006). The Value of Hate in the Countertransference. Clinical Social Work Journal, 34(2), 187-199.
Scaturo, D. J. (2005). Transference, Countertransference, and Resistance: Unconscious Determinants of Dilemmas. In D. J. Scaturo (Ed.), Clinical dilemmas in psychotherapy: A transtheoretical approach to psychotherapy integration (pp. 127-142). Washington, DC US: American Psychological Association.
Noonan, M. M. (1998). Understanding the "difficult" patient from a dual person perspective. Clinical Social Work Journal, 26(2), 129-141.
Woods, M. & Hollis, F. (2000). Casework: A Psychosocial therapy. 5th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Strean, H. S. (1999). RESOLVING SOME THERAPEUTIC IMPASSES BY DISCLOSING COUNTERTRANSFERENCE. Clinical Social Work Journal, 27(2), 123-140
As she grew older, she continued to experience sexual, physical and verbal abuse from her mother and father. According to the DSM-5, Precious meets criteria for exposure due to the fact that she was directly experiencing the traumatic events. In my opinion, the most severe trauma Precious experienced was being raped by her father. In the film, we see moments of Precious remembering that traumatic experience but then transforming her thoughts elsewhere. The image becomes a positive moment, one in which she is famous and adored. My interpretation of these flashbacks is dissociative reactions and are not involuntarily reoccurring; it seems more as though she is in control of thinking back to her exposure. Precious struggles when she is asked about her what her home life is like. She tends to avoid the thought and proceeds to redirect the conversation; this demonstrates her efforts to avoid thoughts of her situation. Due to the nature of Precious’ abuse, her cognitions and mood were negatively effected. The fact that Precious was sexually abused by her father at a young age, in addition to her mother constantly putting her down and making her believe that she was at fault, Precious had it set in her mind that it was the truth. Her mother’s verbal abuse also diminished her participation in school resulting in her inability to read and write at age sixteen. The trauma she was exposed to
Countertransference first introduced by Freud, “as a therapist’s unconscious reaction to a patient’s transference” (Dass-Brailsford, pg. 293, 2007). This concept has since become known as a normal emotional reaction to a client. This reaction that comes from the therapist is a resolved or unresolved conflict within the therapist (Dass-Brailsford, 2007). This has nothing to do with the client but something the client said or did triggered the therapist. If this goes unnoticed, it can be detrimental to the client’s recovery. The therapist may begin to overidentify with the client and lose their sense of hope (Dass-Brailsford, 2007).
Stickley, T. & Freshwater, D. (2006). “The Art of Listening to the Therapeutic Relationship” Journal of Mental health Practice. 9 (5) pp12 - 18.
Precious is really an inspirational movie. It makes the viewer sympathize and empathize with Precious, the main character. Even though Precious’ story is not common, she is still like every other human being, in regards to her psychology. In my opinion, Precious was a great movie to analysis and connect to psychology, especially, emotional and motivational psychology.
Sharf, R. S. (2008). Theories of Psychotherapy and Counseling: Counseling and Cases (5thed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole
Stickley, T., & Freshwater, D. (2006). The art of listening in the therapeutic relationship. Mental Health Practice, 9 (5), 12-18.
When you think of the word “poverty” or “poor” what comes to mind? Some think of hunger, minorities, dirty areas, women, and homeless people. What about when you hear the term “abuse”? For most people, abuse means physical; getting beat up or hit. Although abuse can mean getting beat up or hit, there is far more that follows. Abuse can take on many forms like physical, emotional or sexual. The film Precious by Lee Daniels, based on the novel Push by Sapphire, encounters not only the obvious sexual abuse but physical and emotional abuse as well. Precious starts off with Claireece Precious Jones, played by Gabourey Sidibe, at her school in Harlem. She is called to the office because the principal has found out she is pregnant…Again. Kicked out of school, Precious now tries to find an alternative when her principal tells her about “Each One Teach One”, an alternative school. Precious enrolls and goes through a journey with her new teacher, who becomes her closest friend, her newborn son, and her abusive mother. This drama film is brutal, hard-hitting, and very emotional.
In the movie “ Precious “ by Lee Daniels, Gabourey Sidibe plays a sixteen years old, illiterate and overweight girl name Precious, who lives in Harlem, New York. She lives with her mother Mary Jones, who was entropic and abusive to her. The abuse and oppression was so traumatic for Precious, she would often dissociate herself from the situation and pretend to be someone else. Losing track of time, her situation and herself was her coping mechanism; throughout the movie it appeared that she would have these dreaming episodes where she would be another person in a much better situation. Precious become pregnant twice from her biological father, who had abandoned the family and infected both she and her mother with the HIV virus. She suffered long-term physical, emotional, sexual, and verbal abuse from her from her parents; symptoms from her personal oppression were depressive and withdrawn attitude. Often she was very quiet and appeared unengaged and inattentive in class.
...ate with their therapists. “A systematic relationship between the therapists' personal reactions to the patient and the quality of their communication, diagnostic impressions, and treatment plans” (Horvath & Greenberg, ). While positive attitudes from the therapists are more likely to result in a successful treatment, negative attitudes will not develop the necessary cooperation from the clients side to successfully reach the goal of the therapy.
As previously stated, her father, Carl, sexually assaulted and raped her a copious amount of times and impregnated her not only once, but twice. The abuse began when she was only three years old and continued until she was fifteen; Precious was pregnant at twelve years old. Child rape occurs every two minutes in the United States and sadly one in three girls will be sexually molested before the age seventeen. Sexual abuse is an atrocious, disgusting and horrendous issue that happens every single day to an immense number of children. “Precious” acknowledges this topic and again, shows the negative effects it has on an individual. Although Precious was a victim of sexual abuse and incest; she wanted more for her and her children’s lives. A child who is the victim of prolonged sexual abuse usually develops low self-esteem, a feeling of worthlessness, an abnormal or distorted view of sex and has a higher risk of committing suicide. On the other hand, Precious did not let her destructive sexual abuse define who she is. “I cried the other day and I felt stupid, but f*ck that day. That’s why god made new days,” she says. Despite her rough past, she is strong enough to continue her life. The director and writer incorporated this issue to increase resilience in children subject to dysfunctional families and to sexual and physical abuse. In children who do not have to contend with those problems, the movie
The rapport and friendship built throughout this movie is vital to the success of the therapy exhibited here. This is a great example of Gestalt therapeutic approach and helps to identify most of the techniques incorporated. The techniques and ways of gently confronting but pushing a client all the way through are very beneficial to each viewer of this film.
Stickley,T. & Freshwater, D. (2006). “The Art of Listening to the Therapeutic Relationship” Journal of Mental health Practice. 9 (5) pp12 - 18.
The second stage in the psychodynamic therapy process is, the transference stage. In this stage the development of treatment is set and now it is the patient’s time to let their feelings out. The patient expresses those feelings, emotions, fears, and desires to the therapist without having to worry about censorship. The feelings and behavior of the patient become more pronounced and become a vital part of the treatment itself. During this stage the therapist could experience and better understand of the patient’s past and how it impacted their behavior in the
Case studies are a collection of data obtained using various methods gathered on an individual or group to record areas of interest in order to assist with analysis and provide recommendations. The study should include the name of the person, although this should be protected to provide anonymity where appropriate, and a brief description of the subject. The setting where the study is to be performed should be included. The aim of the observation must be presented along with a report of the findings. The type of method used will depend upon the subject and the area of interest. Data is gathered on the subject in this case observations were used to provide the data. An interpretation of the study will be made in order to provide a conclusion and recommendations made if applicable. Freud famously used the case studies that he carried out on his patients to develop his Psychoanalytic Theory.
The practice aims at reducing social problems and improving social functioning. An individual performs several roles in the society. Problems might occur when there is a conflict between the roles or stress on a certain role which the individual finds difficult to manage. Individual forms the microscopic part of the entire community. Being the root of society, an individual's thought and ideologies influence the society as a whole. Casework uses this perspective to create change and functionality in the society as a whole. Although there exist long draw debates between structural and individual schools of thought, case work has been one of the oldest and most frequently used methods in Social Work.