“After”, is a 2019 teen romantic drama directed by jenny gage that revolves around the love of Tessa, an inexperienced teenage girl, with Hardin, a mysterious ‘bad boy’ . Hardin, the main male character, never had a secure relationship with his father. When Hardin was young, his father used to be an alcoholic with a lot of debt. When he was just eight years old, intruders broke into his home looking for his father for money, however, there was only Hardin and his mother. The intruders forced themselves on Hardin’s mother, and Hardin, who was sleeping then, came downstairs to see what was wrong. To Hardin’s shock, his mother was being raped by three men, one by one. Hardin’s mother told him to leave, however, one man forced him to watch everything. I would assume that Hardin has PTSD as a result of this incident, and in this paper I will try to prove it.
Symptoms of PTSD and scenes that prove Hardin had it:
The person subsequently re-experiences the event through both intrusive memories and nightmares( Barlow, 2020): In one scene, while Hardin was sleeping with Tessa, he dreams of himself as a kid and sees a man on top of her mother. Her mother tells her to go away, but another man holds him still, forcing him to watch everything. Hardin then woke up, breathing heavily, with a terrified look on his face, but Tessa immediately woke up to comfort him.
The individual may avoid anything that reminds them of the trauma, including conversations, places, or even specific types of people(Barlow, 2020): This person, in Hardin’s case, is his father. Hardin always avoids events/places that his father may be found. Hardin holds anger towards his father for being the cause of his pain, but especially for his absence in those times..
They may feel emotionally numb or restricted in their ability to feel, which may interfere with their interpersonal relationships(Barlow, 2020): After Tessa refused to make out with Hardin and Hardin made it his challenge to get her, he followed her up in a certain room and tried to seduce her.. Tessa told Hardin that she had a boyfriend but he still kept on with no sense of remorse. For someone who only wanted to prove a point, finding out that Tessa has a long-term relationship with another boy, Hardin could have left her alone, but his ego and numbness blocked him from seeing the pain that he would be inflicting on Tessa. Tessa is just one of Hardin’s victims because of his self-centered behaviors.
They may be jumpy or easily startled, hypervigilant to their surroundings, and quick to anger (Barlow, 2020): At one party, Tessa finds Hardin talking to a girl and gets frustrated, she confronts him and makes her way out of the room angrily. Hardin followed her to explain that it wasn’t what it looked like, but Tessa grabbed a random guy and kissed him to get back at Hardin. Instead of talking to Tessa first, Hardin pushes the guy in an attempt to fight him, to which the guy said, “She is the one who kissed me”.
It is rather unfortunate that despite Hardin’s hatred for his father, he grows to be a man just like him. Through the object relations theory, we see a striking similarity between Hardin and his father. The object relations theory is a modern psychodynamic perspective that contends that people can be understood as reflecting mental images of significant figures (especially parents) that we form early in life in response to interactions taking place within the family. (Bornstein, 2020) Hardin’s father is literally Hardin’s script in all his behaviors. Hardin’s father was an alcoholic, Hardin became an alcoholic. Hardin’s father was uncommitted in his relationship with his mother, Hardin also avoids an emotionally committed relationship. Hardin’s father inflicted fear on his family, Hardin likes imposing his authority on his peers. It is striking the similarities Hardin has with his father. It is only necessary that Hardin starts therapy to avoid the beginning of a generational trauma.
References
Bornstein, R. (2020). The psychodynamic perspective. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from http://noba.to/zdemy2cv
Barlow, D. H. & Ellard, K. K. (2020). Anxiety and related disorders. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from http://noba.to/xms3nq2c
Cognitive processing therapy (CPT) [Video]. (n.d.). https://www.apa.org. https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/treatments/cognitive-processing-therapy
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