Analysis Of The Movie ' What About Bob '

What About Bob tells a comical story of a Therapist, Dr. Marvin, and his new patient Bob. Desperate for help, Bob feels he cannot manage four weeks without his new therapist and decides to crash his therapist’s vacation. The movie depicts many different ethical dilemmas throughout the movie such as dual relationships, boundaries, and standard of care. Dual Relationships Dr. Leo Marvin, because of the family’s fondness of Bob and his own personal desire for his family members to like and admire him, he repeatedly continues to let Bob spend time with him and his family.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” (Mark Twain). This quote from the famous American writer is the basis for what became one of the hardest ideas to comprehend, death. Death has always been a complex term, causing one to struggle with what the true definition is. It is also hard to wrap your mind around what does it truly mean to die. These are the questions we long for the answer. Whether we acknowledge it or not, death has always been feared by many. Death remains an impossible question, one that has been unexplained since beginning of time. Even though dying is a natural, we as a human race still fear it. What can be done to defeat this never-ending battle? According to Montaigne’s “To Philosophize is to Learn to Die” and Cory Taylor’s “Questions for Me About Dying” we can overcome this by living to the fullest, living with no regrets, living a legacy, and lastly not fearing the inevitable. If you want to conquer the question of life, live in the moment.

That’s the thing about death: it sneaks up and robs a person of their life, taking away all of their happiness. People indulge themselves in the idea of fearing death rather than facing it. Death is an unknown territory where no survivors have ever came back to share their experience. The US Army Private, Roy Scranton’s article “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene” shines hope where he explains how fear can be conquered if the idea of dying is accepted. It is fear that paralyzes people from moving toward the idea of death. If people started to embrace the present, they will understand the inevitability of death and start discrediting fear.

“It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both” (14).

What About Bob is a movie about a man who has many psychological problems. He is not the only one with problems though. The movie What About Bob? shows many psychological disorders in a comedic light. From Agoraphobia, or the fear of open spaces, to Paranoid Personality Disorder. This causes people to suffer paranoia or have a relentless mistrust and suspicion of anybody other than themselves, normally when there is no reason to fear or be suspicious of anyone at all. Most of the characters in the movie express at least one major psychological disorder, and some even express two or more.

Terror management theory (TMT) asserts that human beings have natural tendency for self-preservation if there is threat to one’s well–being (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997). It notes that we are the cultural animals that pose self-awareness on the concept of past and future, as well as the understanding that one day we will die. We concern about our life and death but aware that it is unexpected by everything. The worse matter is that we become aware of our vulnerability and helplessness when facing death-related thoughts and ultimate demise (Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1992). The inevitable death awareness or mortality salience provides a ground for experiencing the existential terror, which is the overwhelming concern of people’s

One example, is Mr. Stalas, or the bald man. In the beginning, he continuously complains and pleads for death. Yet, he still survived. As time passes, we realize that there is something keeping him from killing himself. He tells Lina, “‘If you want to kill yourself, what’s keeping you?’ I said… ‘Fear’, he said.” (page 323) Fear is a common anxiety people feel when they think about death, such as Mr. Stalas.

There are more than one piece of evidence that support the main conclusion in this reading. We should not be afraid of death first because; it does not have any values neither positive nor negative. The author intended for this evidence to support his conclusion by giving an example in page

When people ponder death they wonder about the unknown with trepidation. As a young man, William Cullen Bryant wrote the "Thanatopsis." His thoughts progress from the fear of death to the acceptance of the event. People should not fear death because everyone dies and becomes a part of nature.

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin D. Yalcom is a raw and unfiltered look at one of the most difficult challenges everyone faces, death. He takes you through the real-life experiences of his patients, past and present, and shares his thoughts about death. The real-life examples have a way of grasping your attention and pulling you in. He assists his patients in recognizing the reality of death, but not fearing it. Yalcom suggests that people have varying degrees of death anxiety. For some, death is not even a thought, while for others it may consume their thoughts. He also suggests that our everyday anxieties may ultimately originate from our fear of death. He includes observations of approaches used by famous philosophers. While reading, you cannot help but to contemplate your own life and envision your death.

In addition, Cicirelli said, “The meanings of death and life are interdependent. Life gains its meaning from the fact of death. How, when, where, and why one anticipates dying influences the meaning of the life that one has. Such a view implies changing individuals over time, and consequently a life-span perspective on development of personal death meanings and related death fears. One would expect the individual to develop different personal meanings and death fears over the course of life from early childhood to adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and old age”( Cicirelli 715). When I was seven years old, I fear of death because the dead body and the coffin. There are a lot of Chinese horror movie talk about dead people who become zombies, then at night, they will come out of

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.

There is a dispute between Mikel Burley and Robin Le Poidevin about whether or not the B-theory of time can give its supporters a reason to be less afraid of death. Burley says even on Le Poidevin’s understanding of the B-theory, atheists shouldn’t be comforted. He says this because the widespread B-theoretic account of our attitudes towards the past and future prevents treating our fear of death as unjustified. The paper looks at his argument and provides a weak defense of Le Poidevin. It says that while Burley correctly sees a tension with a non-revisionary approach to our normal emotional life, he doesn’t separate the source of that tension. This paper addresses what it is like to not have something to look forward to after death. It is

While researching in the reference room in University of Wisconsin Stevens Point library, I came across this author Walter Bradford Canon, in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of death and Dying. This encyclopedia lead me to a website linked to the book called The National Center for Biotechnology Information (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). The website educated me about Walter Bradford Canon, and his role as a physiologist of human emotions. He developed the phrase “flight or fight”, which means fear of death and the process of how the brains nerves system reacts to anxiety of dying. Cannon’s credible quote is a useful for my essay because it relates to my thesis and theme in my

There are many reasons why individuals are afraid of death: inability to take care of dependents, pain and sadness that loved ones will feel, or fear of the afterlife. But one of the most common reasons is the fear of nothingness and loss of self (Yalom, 1980). Death anxiety can manifest itself in many different ways (Yalom, 1980). One’s feeling of missing exciting events or the desire to control the surrounding world, demonstrate this manifestation. These unhealthy thoughts help individuals ease fear of death by dealing not with the real and terrifying source of anxiety, but indirectly, through more socially acceptable actions. Many people protect themselves from death anxiety by denying it. Yalom (1980) discussed two ways that accomplish this goal: the ultimate rescuer and personal specialness. Both ideas lead people to feel that they will not be affected by misfortune like others might be. The ultimate rescuer is a type of defense mechanism leading people to believe that someone will come into their life and save them from their problems. An example of this would be a person with severe financial problems needing money to take care of health problems believing that someone or something will bring the needed money and the situation will work itself out. Personal specialness involves the belief that one is in a way different from others and therefore immune from the hardships of life. Personal specialness