What about Bob: Analysis of Characters and Theories
Margaret Oliver
201340-PSY-2012-06T
Professor Leonard
Abstract
In the film What about Bob, the movie starts off with Bob Willey sitting in bed telling himself “I feel great, I feel good, and I feel wonderful.” Without these words of encouragement he wouldn’t make it through day. Bob Wiley is quite the interesting character; he suffers from so many disorders. First he is faced with ongoing anxiety issues throughout the movie. Anxiety disorder is when a “person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal,” which describes Bob’s character perfectly. He has a difficult time leaving his house, riding the elevator and performing simple tasks. However, many of his anxiety symptoms are caused from his multitude of phobias. Because he is afraid of so many things, he is constantly in a state of panic and anxiety. Analysis of Characters and Theories What about Bob focuses on the relationship between Bob Wiley and his Psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin. Bob Wiley suffers from so many disorders, he has “multi-phobic personality characterized by acute separation anxiety.” And Dr. Marvin is a successful, composed, professional therapist that is at the top of his game and feels ready to take on any patient so he decides to take Bob as his patient after a colleague recommends him. Bob instantly becomes attached to Marvin and goes to extreme measures to be near him, for example when he faked suicide on the phone when he couldn’t get ahold of Dr. Marvin. Dr. Marvin quickly realizes, however, that Bob has immense dependency issues which eventually lead to deathly tensions between the two. The epitome of Bob’s attachment is demonstrated when he goes so far as to find the address of Marvin’s vacation spot and consequently follow him there and proceed to make his life miserable.
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