01-23-2014, 01:37 AM
Here is a thread to discuss any and every aspect of Sheldon Cooper as an individual. How did he come to be the way he is? What makes him tick? Why does he act the way he does? Let's delve into his psyche. You could psychoanalyze, talk about his mental and physical tendencies, limitations, vulnerabilities and strengths, or about childhood influences, about his past, his future, his ambitions, his hobbies, the important and life-changing incidents in his life, his relationship with people and with science and about how all this has shaped and is shaping him into the person he is today or is going to be in future.
Just to get the ball rolling in this thread, I quote Dsnynutz's post from the other thread again as well as my reply to it. Hope that's OK.
In other words, "One way of looking at the show is that we've been watching a slow mental disintegration of one man when the core of his identity is stripped away from him", as SpaceAnjl put it perfectly.
These are actually very good explanations as to what has indeed happened to Sheldon.
Anyway, I personally don't think Amy alone is the cause of the regression and the mental disintegration. I think it's been a chain of factors and events over the years that has put Sheldon where he is now: there is the Arctic incident; the peer pressure in general; the constant mocking and the invalidating of his feelings and his POV by the gang; his own mental and physical tendencies and vulnerabilities as an individual; and yes, of course Amy and her efforts to groom, manipulate and change him and to make him "grow up".
Just to get the ball rolling in this thread, I quote Dsnynutz's post from the other thread again as well as my reply to it. Hope that's OK.
(01-21-2014, 12:27 AM)Dsnynutz Wrote: Some food for thought. If this was a real show, and not the farce it's become, you could have some very serious psychological discussions on Sheldon's regressing to childish behaviors again and none of them would be good news for canon or TPTB.
Regression, according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, is a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way. The defense mechanism of regression, in psychoanalytic theory, occurs when an individual's personality reverts to an earlier stage of development, adopting more childish mannerisms. Psychiatrist Joel Gold suggests that careful use of "ARISE" (Adaptive Regression in the service of the Ego) can sometimes yield creative benefits. To the extent that one is handling thoughts and impulses less like an adult, ARISE involves play, appreciation and primitive pleasures, and imagination.
Not that this was the intention of TPTB, but I always felt the childish actions (putting trains in his mouth, etc) Sheldon was displaying was signs of regression. A lot of people with OCD will regress to a time in their life when things made sense to them (more structure/less chaos), and children of abuse if feeling threatened can regress back to a point in childhood where they felt safe. So I think it pretty safe to say that Amy between grooming him for sex and trying to change him has made the character regress to the point of childhood where he felt safe...
In other words, "One way of looking at the show is that we've been watching a slow mental disintegration of one man when the core of his identity is stripped away from him", as SpaceAnjl put it perfectly.
These are actually very good explanations as to what has indeed happened to Sheldon.
Anyway, I personally don't think Amy alone is the cause of the regression and the mental disintegration. I think it's been a chain of factors and events over the years that has put Sheldon where he is now: there is the Arctic incident; the peer pressure in general; the constant mocking and the invalidating of his feelings and his POV by the gang; his own mental and physical tendencies and vulnerabilities as an individual; and yes, of course Amy and her efforts to groom, manipulate and change him and to make him "grow up".