Paul’s Case Study
People especially teenagers are caught in the middle of different things. Many of these young adults may have a tendency to feel that no one really cares about their thoughts, opinions and feelings. Essentially, teenagers are experiencing many complexities in their teenage lives. These complexities sometimes become the reason why teenagers are able to do things intensely without even thinking of the output of their behavior. When a person is out of control and drowned in too many problems, challenged and dilemmas, the tendency is to find the easiest way to leave these problems behind and one of these ways is through suicide.
The portrait of Paul that emerges from pages is that of a young man torn by conflicts, ill-adapted to his environment and its people, but desperately practicing an imposture that allows him to survive. In his various spheres of activity, Paul is more an observer than a participant, aggressively working to deceive both himself and the world regarding his lack of integration. His sole pleasures are rooted in his "artistic" endeavors, but even these are counterfeit, for he lacks the depth to comprehend his experiences on anything but a superficial level and contents himself with form rather than substanceThe case study is about a young boy who has isolated himself from his environment. In the story, Paul has learned to leave alone and do inappropriate things as his defense in his environment. It can be seen in the beginning of the story how Paul’s teacher dislikes him. They thought Paul as a boy who is temperamental, troublemaker and someone who cannot be trusted. With the behaviour of the teachers towards Paul vice versa, more problems occurred. Paul is not only experiencing problems at school but also inside their house. Thee are instances that his father do not gave him the money he needs for going to his classmates house to study geometry. It seems that the story described Paul as a boy with so much depression, misery and sadness.
Some young people can feel so bad about what is happening inside them, like what has happened to Paul. Paul is in pain and feels so alone with his fantasies, hatred, envy, and consequent anxiety that he consciously or unconsciously find a way of ending their lives. In the time that one has known this, for instance, Paul’s parents or teachers, this individual may show many signs some very small of their self-destructive wishes. The difficulty can be noticing these messages, thinking about them, and acting appropriately.
What is seen in the case study is a collapse of the earlier ways of meeting various situations of Paul’s stress. Herein Paul aced with the fact that he is alone, and that his development is out of normal compared to his peers in terms of social context. An additional disappointment for him is that his parents' approval or reassurance is no longer as effective as it was when he was a child. Now, he seeks approval and recognition from his contemporaries -- but in order to get this, he has to perform or behave in a way that is acceptable to them (Paul’s teachers. Their standards may be different from those of his parents.
Paul's intensity of contempt, reserved for those who inhabit the mundane world of reality, signals a pathological defensiveness; his alienation from and rejection of the universe that defines his true identity may be interpreted as a classic psychological defense mechanism, that of projection. As he repudiates the undistinguished middle class he belongs to, Paul vilifies his own ordinariness, an intolerable condition that must be altered through redefinition of reality. Thus, this perceptual reframing requires an all-encompassing denial of his connection to his first world and a subsequent displacement of his self-hatred onto those living out their lives in that niche into which he was accidentally born.
In the story, it shows also that Paul do not have companions and friends whom he could share his sadness or even happiness. He has been able to live for himself and by himself. Paul has done things, even bad things to get attention from his peers, teachers and even his parents but no one was able to understand the real meaning of his actions. They judge Paul as a boy who lacks attention but never realized that the people whom should provide his needed attention are the ones who is rejecting and neglecting him.
If one views "Paul's Case" as a kind of psychological autopsy, Paul's ultimate fate can be traced to the lack of genuine interaction between himself and his worlds. Although it is true that he maintains a formidable shield, this defense is a self-protective mechanism that is perpetuated by a lack of knowledge of alternative methods of survival. That no one breaks through Paul's armor plate is testimony not only to the effectiveness of that barrier, but also to the dehumanizing tendencies of authority, institutions, and social groups.
As a teenager, Paul has been misunderstood by the people whom he think should be the one helping or understands him, like the teachers and his parents. And being a teenager, Paul felt that he doesn’t have the right to control over his life as he like. Because of this, Paul thought that killing himself is the best way to show the people that he can control his own live even in death.
0 comments:
Post a Comment