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Dysfunctionating Family In The Film Ordinary People

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In the movie “Ordinary People” the main idea that is shown through the movie is how dysfunctional the family is. The Jarrett family is suffering getting over the loss of their son Buck; Conrad has survivor's guilt after losing his brother. He comes home from the hospital after almost taking his life and is now seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Berger. Conrad, Beth and Calvin throughout the movie engage in acts of silence and some cases violence. In these cases they could have looked for responses within themselves and created a sense of safety for each other by not having any kind of judgemental tone being calm as well as reassuring each other on how valuable the bond between all of them is. Conflict management could have helped this family immensely with proper help and …show more content…

In one scene Calvin is golfing with Beth and some friends, Beth begins to mention how they should go on a vacation to go golf and Calvin mentions asking Conrad to come along. Beth immediately feels threatened Calvin soon starts arguing with Beth on how she treats Conrad unfairly and an argument breaks out in public. Here Calvin needed to create safety and talk to her in a calm tone. He should have also waited to have this conversation in a more private space not embarrass Beth in front of other people. Calvin was also avoiding the situation partly for he allowed Beth get her way most of the time.
In the movie “Ordinary People” we see the Jarrett family as highly dysfunctional. Every member of the family has problems with conflict management. What could have helped the family was doing family therapy where they could have solved their problems and regain their relationship. As a human being we all need connection with someone we all need to have a sense of a strong relationship. When it comes to grieving we need to seek help no one can heal on their own no matter how strong we think we

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