In the film, the audience learns that Nina didn’t enjoy ballet as a young girl. Her mother asks her “Remember when you first started? If I hadn't taken you to each of your classes you would have been completely lost”. This raises the question around whether Nina choose a career in ballet in order to gain the approval and affection of her mother, or if, by becoming a ballerina, Nina was making choices based on the actualising tendency based her innate talents and abilities. When Nina is chosen for the role of the Swan Queen, is she moving towards fulfilling her actualising potential in terms of Rogers’ organismic valuing process or is this another step in trying to win the positive regard of those around her. It seems as though the film is open to interpretation. The main character, Nina is an unreliable narrator as …show more content…
Perhaps in this way the film allows the viewer to choose the option they most identify with. The fact that Nina is an untrustworthy narrator for the film could be said to highlight the subjective or phenomenological aspect of Rogers’ theory. Rogers emphasised the subjective nature of experience, focusing on the person’s perceptions of the situations, events and experiences (A. T. Muller, 1995). Because an individual assigns value to experiences based on their personal perspective, this leaves room for discrepancies between the phenomenological field and the ‘real-life’ or objective reality of the experience. Due to this, an individual such as Nina may develop a self-concept which is inconsistent or inaccurate in relation to their experiences (Santrock, 2005). Rogers defines