Good Will Hunting: Reactive Attachment Disorders

“Good Will Hunting” is a fantastic example of a psychological movie. The screenwriter has given the main character, Will, a reactive attachment disorder. The movie is set in Boston and follows a 20 year-old man named Will Hunting. He was abused by his foster father when he was just a child. A reactive attachment disorder is rare disease, it is when someone was either abandoned, Abused, or put through a foster program at a very young age. Will, in Good Will Hunting, has an attachment disorder. Contact comfort is best shown with a child at a young age and clings on to his/her mother. This is best shown in Harry Harlow's’ case study here is what he found out. He tested on a monkey that was just born and it was fed by a animatronic monkey and it

The second monkey who had not fed the baby had just a cloth in its chest resembling a actual monkey. This caused the monkey to cling on to it and made a bond with just the fur of the monkey. Now, in the movies case it is not about a monkey who was given two options at birth. But about a boy who had not been given loving comfort at birth. He grew up having an abusive relationship with his foster father. He was never giving the chance to grow a loving bond between him and another person. Later in life as an adult he showed that the lack of loving contact is provoking reactive attachment disorder. He was shown having only three friends who he trusted. Only three friends this is not normal in a average 20 year old man. When Sean, His psychologist, asks him who his friends are he says Shakespeare, Nietzsche, and several other famously smart men. All who are dead who can not hurt him. After meeting sklar he could not utter the words “I love you” to her after she tried having him open up to her. When she brought up the idea of moving to california with her he said that everything would go wrong, saying she would regret it or she would want him to leave after a few months. Skylar thinks he is hiding his true feelings about