Logotherapy and "Good Will Hunting"

Logotherapy and "Good Will Hunting"

I am certain that we all have examples of occasions in which we, as helping professionals, encountered clients who perceived themselves as victims and our interventions somehow awakened them to the possibilities of a new life.  The challenge is communicating the example in sufficient detail to bring the reader to a state of clarity… where he or she says, ‘yes, I see how that could work!”  Possibly it is for this reason that Franklian Logotherapists’ use video-therapy as a teaching aid.  I would like to offer the interventions of Robin Williams in the movie “Good Will Hunting” as an example.

Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon) is a brilliant young man with a photographic memory.  He is a prolific reader and has acquired a depth of knowledge in all things academic from philosophy to physics.  At the same time, his life is characterized by existential vacuum as evidence by his running around with friends getting drunk and fighting.  He is employed at a prestigious university, albeit as a custodian.  But like many people who are on a path to self-destruction the winds of fate begin to stir, and the events that are in store for Will Hunting are designed to ask him questions about his very destiny. 

A renowned physicist at the university issues a complex mathematical challenge to his graduate students.  The sense is that this problem is of such complexity that even the most brilliant will find it challenging, if not impossible, to solve.  The maze of complex symbols is left scribbled on a chalk board in the hall taunting students to venture a solution.  As Will passes by mopping the floor, he is intrigued by the problem and quickly navigates the labyrinth.  He makes it appear simple…the answer nearly leaping from the board.  If not for fate, he may have gone back to his floor-mopping duties and remained a gifted, yet angry young man.  Instead, the identity of the unlikely problem solver is discovered and the professor sets out to cultivate Will’s academic gifts.

There is one problem, more complex than the most challenging question posed by physics, “why is this young man not living up to his potential?”  Since mathematics will not answer the question, how about a helping professional?  Will is analyzed by several experts…all meeting the same fate…Will is just too resistant to therapy.  Why wouldn’t he be?  He doesn’t acknowledge that he has a problem.  In a final attempt, the professor calls upon an old friend, who, like Will, is perceived by the professor to have squandered his life.  Shaun (played by Robin Williams) is a disheveled psychologist who teaches at a local, regional college.  He is a veteran and is nearly as passionate about his profession as he was about his wife who recently died.  Shaun is healing but is clearly a wounded healer himself.  He finds meaning in life, to some degree, in spite of the suffering he has endured as a result of losing his wife. 

During their first few sessions Will presents himself as an angry, defensive, manipulative, yet brilliant young person.  He has no value of self-transcendence and seeks to use his intellect to protect his feelings and to attack whenever possible.  It appears that on one occasion he penetrates the defenses of his psychologist and finds himself pinned against the wall in a one-hand choke hold.  He has pushed the limits of his therapist and the therapist has found the end of his ethical standards.
While it appears that Shaun’s soma is pushing him to “off” his client and his psyche is considering making a referral, his spirit is being pulled in the direction of self-transcendence.  His defiant power of the human spirit is accessing a higher level of caring for another human being in spite of his seeming unworthiness. 
As the sessions continue, the therapist begins to discover the trauma which was endured by Will in his childhood.  Throughout, Shaun’s primary means of uncovering his client’s world was developed through a genuine relationship.  He was open about his own life, including the deep love he had for his wife.  He was honest and he was always encouraging.  He helped Will strip-off layers of emotional abuse and see that it “was not his fault.”  In so doing, he gave Will an opportunity to answer one of life’s questions, “was he a machine programmed to act this way or did he have intrinsic value as given by a Higher Power and capable of co-determining his own life?” 

Will become more self-confident and began to blend the values held by his childhood friends with those held by “the institution.”  He recognized he had options and employed the cognitive gifts he had in creative thinking…this time without the emotional governor that had previously restricted his vision of the future.  As he pondered the question, “what am I going to do with my life?” he recognized the many choices he had before him:  a career in academia, in industry, a relationship with a girl. 

In the final scene we see Will Hunting driving up to Shaun’s house in the junk car given to him by his friends for his 21st birthday.  He leaves a note in Shaun’s mailbox and makes his decision known…he is going to find the girl.  The pull toward a relationship holds more meaning than ones of fame and fortune.
It is unclear whether Will encountered a relationship in the suprahuman realm, yet the genuine relationship modeled and created by a caring therapist did help awaken a sleepwalker to the demands of life.  Who knows what challenges lie ahead for Will as a result of his choices?  But, there is little doubt that the challenges will be mitigated if he acknowledges the spiritual dimension and a God greater than he.  Keeping an eye on the prize of life will always enable us to answer “yes” to the question, does the suffering I am being asked to endure have any meaning?