Running head: JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY, AWARENESS AND ACCEPTANCE
American Beauty
A Shared Journey of Discovery, Change and Acceptance
(http://www.dolezalek.com/chris/ambeauty.htm)
Abstract
An analysis of American Beauty’s Lester Burnham from the perspective of a Person Centered Therapist is a useful exercise in taking a closer look at this form of therapy. The film itself shows a man choosing and directing change in his own life from a place of incongruence toward a place of greater balance. The challenge of feeling true empathy and genuine positive regard toward Lester is underlined by the fact that this individual chooses to revolt by becoming a rather extreme non-conformist to the point where he ventures dangerously close to child molestation. The audience experiences great disdain for a man who is inclined in a direction towards what our society considers the ultimate sin. To feel true empathy and genuine positive regard towards the sinner of the ultimate sin requires a great deal of inner strength and conviction in such a perspective. The film successfully leads the audience towards acceptance of the lead character just at the point where he finds acceptance for himself. Looking at the challenges that such a client would present to a person centered therapist allows one to take a closer look at this form of therapy. It also allows us to consider the therapist from the perspective of a listener, a leader, a teacher and/or facilitator of individuals.
American Beauty
A Shared Journey of Discovery, Change and Acceptance
Let us take a closer look at Lester Burnham from the
perspective of a Person Centered Therapist. Kevin Spacey portrays Lester, a middle-aged
man living the apparent American dream, in the 1999 movie American Beauty
written by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes. Going to watch his daughter
cheerleading at a high school basketball game, he is smitten by her
friend. This rocks his world enough that
he realizes that he’s been in “a coma …
for twenty years, and I’m only now waking up.”
The film leads the audience through Lester’s journey
of awakening and discovering what he does and doesn't like about his life. He makes a series of decisions to change what
he is unhappy with. His infatuation with
his daughter’s friend and his sudden disregard for the conformity of the American
dream life leaves you with contempt and disdain toward this lead character. After all, society places the child moLester at the very bottom of its ladder of acceptance and
basically beyond any forgiveness. The
film combines Freudian sexual and violence drives with a generativity
verses stagnation type of conflict a la Erik Erikson. In the end, our stereotypical American
suburbanite finally finds beauty within himself and his life while miraculously
gaining empathy from the viewer. Just
moments later he is murdered leaving you with the ultimate existentialist
message about valuing life’s every moment.
In our hypothetical interactions with a Person Centered Therapist, Lester comes in for a series of visits; the initial visit occurs about three weeks after the basketball game. Lester initially complains of a mid-life crisis. As he describes what he is going through, it seems that the problem he presents reflects a “Major Depressive Episode” (APA 2001) with symptoms of a depressed mood, markedly diminished interest in all, or almost all, activities, feelings of worthlessness, diminished ability to think or concentrate, and bouts of insomnia. Lester has been consistently very depressed for the last 2-3 weeks. Lester has lost all interest in maintaining his position at work “my job consists of masking my contempt for the assholes in charge… Once a day I sneak off to the bathroom to jerk off where I fantasize about a life that does not so closely resemble hell….” (Ball, 1999) and makes this very clear to his superiors before he quits. Lester has lost all interest in his marriage in its current form, and he feels he no longer has a connection with his daughter and cannot function as her father. He has incredibly low self-image that brings a great sense of worthlessness. He lies awake at night have waking dreams (that might be interpreted as hallucinations) of an adolescent girl. There are also occasional manic episodes where Lester puts up an upbeat front. The presenting problem does seem to be a Major Depressing Episode.
As the Person Centered Therapist, one must
first establish the “necessary and sufficient conditions for change” (Sharf, R.S., 2004, p. 202-227). Lester’s psychological vulnerability is very
apparent, and is it easy to establish psychological contact as he is not
reluctant to open up about his issues.
As a next step, the therapist must establish a relationship consisting
of congruence and genuineness, unconditional positive regard or acceptance, and
empathy. This is vital to person
centered therapy; however, a therapist in this situation will find it difficult
to be accepting and empathic towards someone who seems inclined towards child
molestation. Nonetheless, one can remind
oneself to separate the sin from the sinner.
Once the therapist has established unconditional positive regard and
empathy within him/herself, the task becomes to establish this perception of empathy
and acceptance within the client. Here
again, this seems an attainable goal as Lester seemingly is seeking such a
relationship to help him muddle through his issues and depression.
Lester is a middle-aged Caucasian man with a
wife and one teenage daughter. He is
acquainted with his neighbors, but doesn’t seem to have any close personal
friends. He lives in a typical suburban neighborhood and has a
middle-management position at a media marketing magazine. What seemed the life of an American dream,
Lester discovers various areas of incongruence between himself and his
world. There are conflicts between
himself and his wife, with his daughter, with his job and most importantly with
himself. He discovers himself imprisoned
in his own world that suddenly seems foreign to him. As Lester arrives at this
place in his life where liberating changes seem the only way out of his
perceived crisis, he is not alone in being at such a junction. Lester’s wife is also going through issues of
sorting out her own world: “She wasn’t always like this. She used to be happy. We used to be happy”
(Ball, 1999). His daughter is going
through teenage transitions of striving for self, independence and sorting out
her own identity. The incongruence of
these two people that are so close to him also contribute to Lester’s own sense
of imbalance.
The nondirective approach of the Person
Centered Therapist of letting the client steer seems appropriate in this case. Lester
himself has embarked on a journey from the incongruent world from which he has
awoken as a seeker of a more harmonious place. The life transition he is
undertaking seems quite developmental and could certainly benefit from some
positive fostering. However, there are also some areas where the typical
approach at first seems suspect. Lester’s current path seem to be leading him
away from the stability of work, a relationship with his wife and a
relationship with his daughter into what seems like a serious regression into a
youth he left behind.
In his
journey from incongruence to a place of balance, Lester is taking many risks.
As a therapist, to discourage him from taking those risks is asking him to stay
in his incongruent box. It would also not be accepting his choices to change
his life. To share in his journey in an empathic and supportive manner and to
actively listen so that he too can hear himself speak will help him along his
path. The objective is to lead the client to a place of congruence for
themselves. This does not mean leading
the client to a place considered as congruent by the therapist or by society.
There will always be some personal bias of the therapist involved when (s)he encourages the client to speak in how this is
encouraged; however, the true person centered therapist will try to avoid this
and simply allow facilitate the client by listening and letting them hear
themselves in their own quest for change. This approach requires a strong
belief in the basic good of human nature in each and every person as well as a
belief in some common underlying values possessed by all humans. Otherwise, the
therapist may find themselves helping a client along on a road that leads to
things like child molestation. It is, after all, conceivable that this could be
a place of congruence for some individuals.
In Lester’s case, his path out of his
perceived prison could very well have lead him to
child molestation. In the film he barely catches himself before he sees how his
actions would have been incongruent with his own system of values and beliefs.
However, if a therapist would have advised him not to go there, he may have caught
himself earlier but have done so in accordance with someone else’s (the
therapist’s) beliefs. That is exactly the place he was trying to get away from.
Lester did not want to live his life according to the values and beliefs of
others. As his therapist, one should encourage him in his own journey.
Hopefully such therapy would also have lead him to see
the contradiction of his intended, but not fully thought through, actions with
his values and beliefs.
Lester is a man looking for beauty in various
places. He thinks he finds it in this young girl who herself says “there’s nothing worse in life than being ordinary” (Ball, 1999). The thought of being “ordinary” is exactly
what resonates with great discord in Lester. He tells Angela that she is every
else but ordinary, and soon afterwards seems to realize that he himself is also
no longer the ordinary person he thought he was. Lester seems to find the
beauty in himself in this film which portrays beauty as being in so many
unexpected places.
For Lester, the goal of therapy should be to help him along in his
journey to discovering that he can find himself to be the American Beauty.
Hopefully, therapy could lead him to find this end himself a little earlier and
without the need for such significant disruptions in himself in the people
around him which ultimately lead to his own death. In a twisted way, the film
ends with the beauty of seeing Lester’s reflection in his own blood, lying dead
with a look of utter contentment and inner harmony on his face. It was this
reflection of himself as a beautiful American he sought all along in his
journey. The goal of person centered therapy is to share in a journey directed
by the client towards their own congruence and their own ability to see the
reflection of themselves as a beautiful person according to their own
perspectives, values and beliefs.
The critique of person centered therapy lies in two places. First, there
is the potential danger of the nondirective approach which could facilitate a
client down a path which would lead to harm of others (e.g. child molestation).
This requires a belief not simply that humans in
general are fundamentally “good,” but that every single individual is also
fundamentally a “good” human being and would not find congruence with themselves
in a place where they are harming others. If one has this belief, or at least
believes there is that part of every human which will lead them to feel
incongruent when harming others (or harming themselves), then person centered
therapy makes sense.
Secondly, there is a danger in nondirective therapy
of abdicating responsibility to the client for their own therapy and simply
being a good listener. As a therapist you are in a very real sense a leader,
only that you lead each person one at a time. Rosalynn Carter once said: “A leader takes people where they want to go. A
great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to
be.” Likewise, a person centered therapist should not in separating the sinner
from the sin forget that their own role as therapist. On the other hand,
leading people where they “ought to go” is leading them to a place that you as
a therapist or society as a while believes they should go as opposed to letting
them lead them selves to a place that is congruent
with them selves. There is great danger also in leading others where we believe
they ought to go. The ideal leader or therapist doesn’t lead at all but
facilitates people in leading themselves.
The
strong points of person centered therapy for Lester revolve mostly around
letting him find his own way to balance and harmony in his own life as this is
the only way that his positive regard of himself can be truly genuine. The
danger lies in all the possible disruptions letting him fully direct his own
path. It impacts his relationship with his wife and that with his daughter. It
impacts his daughter’s friend Angela. It impacts his neighbor’s son and his
father and their relationship. There is great potential for harm for being
entirely nondirective and in the end Lester own chosen path lead to such a
disruption in his neighbor’s sense of congruence that the neighbor resorted to
killing Lester who was the source of the seemingly unbearable disruption in his
life. Ideally, person centered therapy would have helped Lester along his path
without such impact and potentially certain things were inevitable whether
Lester chose that path or not… Some Buddhists say that growth can only come
through pain; however, perhaps a therapist can help reduce the pain while
enhancing the growth in helping clients navigate their paths towards their
place of genuine congruence.
Tao Te Ching
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
If you don't trust the people,
you make them untrustworthy.
The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!"
(Lao-tzu & Mitchell S., 1994)
References
American Psychiatric Association &
Enigma Information Retrieval Systems. (2001). Criteria for Major Depressive
Episode. Electronic DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and statistical manual of
mental disorders, Text revision IV), Windows(Version 1.0), Retrieved
Ball, A.
(1999). American Beauty [Motion picture].
Lao-tzu, & Mitchell, S. (translator) (1994). Tao Te Ching - A New English Version (Pocket ed.). : Harper Collins Perennial.
Sharf, R. S. (2004). Theories of Psychotherapy and
Counseling - Concepts and Cases (3rd ed.).