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Family Overview The Grapes are a family living in a rural and economically depressed community. The members of the Grape family presently residing in the familial home consists of biological birth mother Bonnie Grape, who is unemployed and 54 years of age. Amy Grape, the eldest child, Unemployed and currently 34 years of age. Gilbert Grape, the eldest male sibling who is employed at a local grocery store and is currently 24, years of age. Arnie Grape is Gilbert’s younger brother and is presently turning 18 years of age. Arnie reaching his 18th birthday is considered to be somewhat of a triumph by the Grape family, as Arnie suffers from a debilitating medical condition that has not only kept him from achieving age appropriate developmental milestones but also threatens to shorten his life expectancy considerably. The youngest sibling Ellen Grape is currently employed at a local ice cream parlor and is 16 years of age. In addition to the previously mentioned family members there are two persons who are no longer present within the familial home setting. Larry Grape the only sibling to have left the familial home is currently working as a flight attendant and is 32 years of age. Bonnie Grape’s former spouse, Albert Grape, biological father to all children in the Grape family unit is deceased. Mr. Grape had committed suicide some time ago by hanging himself in the basement of the home that the Grapes continue to reside in. The circumstances surrounding Mr. Grape’s death are important factors to consider when assessing the Grape family, as the psychological effects of this event are still being grappled with by the family Unit. Individual Assessment of Gilbert Grape Micro-Assessment Gilbert has expressed feelings... ... middle of paper ... ...reston. K.,Hudson, J., (2009), Mental health: overlooked and disregarded in rural America. Retrieved from. http://files.cfra.org/pdf/Mental-Health-Overlooked-and-Disregarded-in-Rural-America.pdf. on March 02, 2012. Ireland, M., & Pakenham, K. (2010). Youth adjustment to parental illness or disability: the role of illness characteristics, caregiving, and attachment. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 15(6), 632-645. doi:10.1080/13548506.2010.498891. Jiji, T. S. (2007). Family care giving to psychiatric patients: its impact on care givers. Rajagiri Journal Of Social Development, 3(1), 43-61. Kaplow, J. B., Saunders, J., Angold, A., & Costello, E. (2010). Psychiatric Symptoms in Bereaved versus Non bereaved Youth and Young Adults: A Longitudinal Epidemiological Study. Journal Of The American Academy Of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 49(11), 1145-1154.
George constantly reminds Lennie that he would not be struggling if he wasn’t taking care of him (STEINBECK, 1977). Similarly, in the film What's Eating Gilbert Grapes, Gilbert is a teenager struggling to provide for his family consisting of two sisters, a mentally handicapped brother and an obese mother. Gilbert is held up with responsibilities making him have no time for a social life (DEWIS, 2011).
These stressors include his job, townspeople, and the police department. In addition, his personal relationships and family members also contribute to his stress. Gilbert works as a grocer at Lamson’s Grocery. This was originally the only grocery in the town but recently Foodland opened and has diverted business away from the mom-and-pop shop where Gilbert works. This grocery chain increases Gilbert’s financial stress because of his decreased income. Although his job is a negative stressor, it is also positive because the arrangement allows Gilbert to bring his younger brother, Arnie, to work with him. This provides safety and a sense of security for Gilbert. The townspeople throughout the movie represent negative stress by making fun of Bonnie’s (Momma) weight. In addition to the pointing and laughing, the children in the community try to sneak a peek through the window to see how she physically looks. It appears as if she serves as a source of entertainment for the other children. The police department does not seem to me adequately educated or trained to deal with Arnie who suffers from autism. They repeatedly threaten to put Arnie in jail for having climbed the water tower. It is important to recognize that this places stress on the police department. Becky, Gilbert’s unofficial girlfriend, serves as both a positive and a negative stressor. She encourages Gilbert to provide care not only to his family
From reading and reflecting her personal experience and journey with her sister, Pamela, I acquired a personal outlook of the deteriorating effects of mental illness as a whole, discovering how one individual’s symptoms could significantly impact others such as family and friends. From this new perspective mental health counseling provides a dominate field within not only individuals who may suffer mental illness such as Pamela, but also serve as a breaking point for family and friends who also travel through the illness, such as Carolyn.
In the great movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, directed by Lasse Hallstrom, there is a great variety of things eating Gilbert. Gilbert is a young man who feels as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders and feels trapped in a life he can’t escape, no matter how hard he tries. All of Gilbert’s emotional problems are the effects of his mother, she is an overweight-depressed woman who puts a lot of guilt, anger, and sadness on Gilbert, which in return makes Gilbert feel despair, pressured, depressed, and trapped.
Gilbert Grape is the eldest child. He takes on the role of being the head of the family by working a full-time job at the town’s mini-grocery store providing for his siblings, special care for his disabled brother Arnie and homebound mother. Amy Grape is the second eldest and takes on the motherly role in the household while becoming their
The family dynamics in the Grape family is close and reflects a general sense of caring. Each character on some level interacted with one another in order to keep the family together. While Gilbert works tirelessly as a caregiver for his brother, he also works to provide for his family. When Ellen is not preoccupied with herself, she also helps take care of her mother. Bonnie, while immobile for much of the movie, runs her family unit from her spot on the couch, and she is included in meals when they bring the table to her in order for them to eat together. Newman & Newman (2012) suggested that the demands of household management stimulate development. As each character is involved in this role in some sense,
Arnie Grape shows the signs and symptoms of an Intellectual Disability. As previously stated, the criteria for ID includes early onset, low intellectual functioning, and low adaptive functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). There are no specific scenes that talk about Arnie’s disability, so it may be unfair to say that there was an early onset for ID. However, in the beginning of the movie Gilbert’s dialogue discusses how “doctor’s said we’d be lucky if Arnie lived to be ten. Well, ten came and went.” Now the Grape family would be celebrating Arnie’s 18th birthday, despite the doctor saying Arnie could die “any time now”. (GRAPE CITATION) Gilbert never mentions Arnie having a specific disease or disorder. The only information revealed
Strodl, E., & Noller, P. (2003). The relationship of adult attachment dimensions to depression and agoraphobia. Personal Relationships, 10(2), 171-186. doi:10.1111/1475-6811.00044
Chien, W. (2010). Stress of Family Members in Caring for a Relative with Schizophrenia. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Robertson, S. M., Zarit, S. H., Duncan, L. G., Rovine, M. J., & Femia, E. E. (2007). Family Caregivers Patterns of Positive and Negative Affect. Family Relations , 12-23.
Primary caregivers are given an opportunity to take care of their loved ones; however, this job comes with a lot of stress and its consequences (Tsai, 2003). Primary caregivers take care of those with a chronic illness such as a family member or friend, are given a task that is so immense that it induces a lot of stress. In the previous decades, many research articles have developed studies which focused on stressors that were associated with the task of being the primary caregiver; yet, a theory surrounding this topic has not been developed until the early 2000s. Tsai (2003) developed the Theory of Caregiver Stress based on the Roy Adaptation Model to identify the caregiver’s response, perceptions, and adaptations to the stress and burden that primary caregiver’s experience.
Thanks to Bonnie, the overweight mother and Arnie, the loony brother, the Grape household is simply demanding for attention. This is set in Endora as well, which makes it worse. At the beginning of the movie, Gilbert doesn’t seem to be too disturbed by this. He lifts the children up for them to observe Bonnie, ‘the beached whale’. Gilbert is shown getting ‘eaten up’ in slow motion at the police station. After Momma retrieves her son and exits the police station, everyone slows their step and gathers around to ‘examine’ Momma. Hallstrom throws in reaction shots along with the soundtrack which reinforces the feeling of sympathy for Momma. Gilbert is obviously not wanting to be seen with Momma, as he’s always trying to avoid being near her. The car ride home was awkward and Gilbert’s face was unhappy and troubled. The Grape family doesn’t respond to the public but are certainly disturbed by their judgmental watch. Having to deal with the town people is also one of the burdens that add to Gilbert’s
The movie, “Whats eating Gilbert Grape” is about a family that goes through hardships in a small town of Endora, Iowa. The town is super small and everyone knows each other business. Gilbert's family consist of his mother and siblings who live in the same broken down house. The movie starts with Gilbert as the narrator and just in the first few minutes of the opening it is learned that Gilbert's dad committed suicide and his brother Larry left to pursuit higher education. Larry was the only one to break the poverty line and never to communicate with his family members again. Gilbert described Larry as the one who got away, in the opening of the movie. Bonnie Grape has 5 kids but only 4 of the 5 lives with her in their shack. The kids are mentioned from oldest to youngest: Larry, Amy, Gilbert, Arnie and Ellen. Bonnie Grape is extremely obese and suffers from depression ever since her husband(Albert Grape) committed suicide in the basement. Albert Grape was described in a brief mention of the movie as an alcohol who hang himself in the base...
The Grape Family… This is a family with a few setbacks. They aren't your ideal family with a stay at home mom, business working dad, and a few kids...They are a realistic family. The twist is there is no dad, and the kids are old, they take care of their obese mother. The family consist of Gilbert, Arnie, Momma(Bonnie), Ellen, and Amy. Surprisingly some of them are the most important characters, but not all of them. The most important characters are Gilbert, Arnie, Momma, Becky, and Mrs.Carver. Mrs. Carver is a town women who has the ideal family, yet she isn’t happy, like you would usually see on t.v. She is a stay at
Acknowledging, the importance of attachment has been in helpful development of couples therapy, in particular to Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), “where it helps explain how even healthy adults need to depend on each other,” (Nichols, 2013, p. 62). EFT is an empirically validated experiential therapy model that works with emotion to create change. EFT therapists use “attachment theory to deconstruct the familiar dynamic in which one partner criticizes and complains while the other gets defensive and withdraws,” (Nichols, 2013, p.63). Research has demonstrated the importance of attachment in individuals. It is not solely a childhood trait attachment is a trait that individuals carry for the rest of their lives. Nonetheless, it is important to work on the attachments with families and couples in order to alleviate some of the negative interactions that arise from feeling a fear of losing the attachment with