Psychological Perspective on Antwone Fisher Essay

When a child experiences trauma, it stays with them for the rest of their life. When a child experiences abuse, one of the highest forms of trauma, they can do little to stop it from affecting everything they do. Tobias Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life, Illustrates this. While it can be said that Rosemary, the mother of Jack, was in many ways responsible for his life, she herself can not solely be blamed. The trauma and abuse she experienced as a child contributed greatly to her choices, and her son’s life. This shows that adversity in Rosemary’s life lead to her not being able to act normally, and this caused the life of her son.

Antwone underwent a lot of abuse and he just tried to cover it up. When he joined the navy, things just started spilling out of his heart. I don’t know about you but that has to take a lot of courage to uncover your deep dark past. This movie is filled with fear and courage and most of all the help of others.

1. Psychology has contributed to the advancement of social issues in many ways. Psychologists challenged societies way of thinking on many social issues, one being segregation in schools. Psychology was used to show the affects of segregation and that psychologically homosexuals were no different than heterosexuals. Psychology has helped drop stereotypes and stigmas and helped create the way of thinking that most of society now has.

In this essay I am going to explore two of the major approaches to Psychology, Cognitive theories and Behaviourist theories. I will discuss in some detail the two approaches, state how they compare and illustrate the similarities and the differences between them. John Watson, one of the founders of Behaviourism, based his theories on the principles of learning outlined by Pavlov who suggested the theory known as Classical Conditioning; he trained dogs to salivate whenever he rang a bell. Dogs have a natural reflex response to salivate when they see food, Pavlov rang a bell when the dogs were given food and after several repetitions of this action, the dogs began to salivate whenever they heard the bell, even when there was not

Eric Reynolds is a fifty-six year old African American Vietnam veteran and plumber. He is presenting symptoms of recurring negative intrusive memories of traumatic moments in combat; avoidance of triggering factors, such as crowds, sudden movement, and unprovoked or unexpected touching; negative thoughts and emotions, primarily involuntary aggression and self-imposed isolation; heightened arousal when triggered; insomnia as a result of recurring nightmares; hypervigilance; and pressured speech when discussing traumatic content but otherwise remained articulate. These symptom’s onset occurred over thirty years prior to his current examination, after Mr. Reynolds left combat and entered non-combat operations within Vietnam. The symptoms persisted after reintroduction to civilian life and remained chronic.

Based on a true story, the movie Antwone Fisher starts by going through his adulthood suffering from childhood trauma. Antwone Fisher was born in Cleveland Ohio. From the day he was born he was unwanted. He was born in a prison institution, to a single mother. His father was killed by another girlfriend just two months before his birth. His mother showed little to no interest in him, and searches for foster homes for him to live in. He is sent to live with Mrs. Tate family in Glenville, Ohio, and that’s where the nightmare of an upbringing begins filled with constant abuse. Antwone Fisher in my point of view points out realization to the whole adulthood how childhood plays a big role towards the older you. Throughout the essay I will explain why I believe Antwone Fisher is Diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Dyslexia, and childhood trauma through step to-step process of Antwone Fisher abused as a child, sexual, physical, and emotional rollercoaster.

Over the years, many social scientists have offered a number of theories to explain personality trait and development. But while this debate continues, one aspect of personality development continues to engender a great deal of controversy: personality pathology. This area of concentration seems to have garnered more attention in recent years, as experts scramble to offer explanations and analysis for what appears to be a general decline in the moral fabric of American society, fueled by what appears to be a general coarsening of civility among certain segments of our population. Are more people simply being born with personality disorders that ultimately lead them down this path? Not so according to the basic principles of the

Antwone Fisher’s life was full of trials and tribulations that led him to a life of insatiable anger. This cycle of rage would continue throughout Anwone’s life until he began to learn how to manage it. With the help of Dr. Davenport’s counseling, Antwone was able to find closure and live a life free of burden, uncertainty, and regret.

During the movie “Antwone Fisher” it’s clear that Antwone presents with several overlapping disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorders and depression, as a matter of fact, he suffered psychologically, verbally, physically and sexually early in his childhood surly the were the causes of his disorders. Also, he was deprived of several psychological developmental stages, trust vs mistrust (oral), autonomy vs shame and doubt (anal), initiative vs guilt (phallic), industry vs inferiority (latency), intimacy vs isolation (genital), as a young child was the cause of his neurodevelopmental disorders. For those reasons, Antwone adopted a vast number of defenses, ego defense mechanisms to be exact to cope with his disorders

Two prominent researchers, B.F. Skinner and Albert Bandura, have developed theories which provide differing perspectives and explanations regarding the learning behavior of individuals. The purpose of this writing is to explore the theoretical perspectives of Operant Conditioning Theory developed by B.F. Skinner and Social Learning Theory developed by Albert Bandura. An overview of both theories is presented, followed by a discussion of their similarities and differences.

Antwone’s foster mother had a momentous influence on Antwone. Antwone was violent towards him and may have taught him to be aggressive. However, there are some instances that a model does not always have an impact on an individual in every area of his or her life (Schultz & Schultz, 2013). For instance,

Antwoine Fisher was a man who was in the navy who had issues of aggression among his shipmates that would use vulgarity in their language that made him upset to the point that made him get into physical confrontations. He was a sailor with violent outbursts and tendencies. Although he was aware of being at risk of being kicked out of the navy for repetitive fighting, he was given the opportunity to see a naval psychiatrist. Making it difficult to open up to the doctor, Antwoine eventually did and reveals disturbing truths of his past life. He had issues that the average child would not experience, an example would be his childhood. In his childhood, he was bounced from foster homes where not only did he get habitual emotional abuse he was belittled by his caregivers at a very young age. After he decides to open up to the doctor, he begins to face his reality and locate the family he has never met. The focus of this paper is to identify the major problems he has experienced, the social and environmental factors that had an influence in the mental issues he was facing and is still battling today.

Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory explains psychological functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation. Triadic reciprocal causation is a system assuming human action as a result of an interaction with the environment, behavior, and a person. Bandura explains "person" as being a cognitive factor such as memory, anticipation, and planning. It is because of these cognitive capacities that some people can select or restructure their environment.

Bandura shows through this theory a person’s beliefs, and characteristics. In addition, it shows the behavior established in the environment, and an individual behavior as well. All of these have to work together as stated by Bandura. (Davis-Brezette, Kamla, Larson, 2006). Because of the strong role of the environment, this could lead to multiple strengths. An example of this is choosing the right environment to determine the type of person you will become. For example, going to Church, or being involved in School could shape a part of who that person will become. These could all lead to eventually having an impact on the environment they are in. This could happen by influencing the people around you, and having relationships with them. In return those people are able to influence you as well (Davis-Brezette, Kamla, Larson,

This research is reinforced by Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1977; as cited in Redmond, 2010) which states that self-efficacy or a person’s belief in one’s ability to succeed in a particular situation plays an essential role in how goals, tasks, and challenges are approached. It continues to evolve as people acquire new skills, experiences, and understanding. It can have an impact on everything from psychological states to behavior to motivation. Bandura believed that the key to successful therapy is self-efficacy. Bandura's theory proposed that learning can also occur by simply observing the actions of others (Ross, 2007). It was stated that people can learn new information and behaviors by watching other people which is known as observational learning. Underneath the social cognitive theory is the social learning theory. There are three core concepts at the heart of social learning theory. In this study, the researchers will only use the two concepts which