Prognosis In Forrest Gump

Jenny (from the film Forrest Gump) is a 37-year old single, Caucasian mother with a six year old boy. She reports feeling distressed and conflicted as to whether she should reach out to the biological father, whom she ran away from and has not seen since their child's conception over six years ago. He does not know about his son. Additionally, the client has recently been experiencing nausea, fatigue, persistent diarrhea, and rapid weight loss. Though doctors do not understand the cause of these symptoms, the client has been informed the prognosis does not look good. Faced with the prospect of death, she worries about telling and burdening Forrest with the existence of his son before her health deteriorates. Though she reports feeling …show more content…
To cope with such uncomfortable emotions, she has abused substances for numbing and self-medication purposes and adopted a dismissing-avoidant style of attachment in her adult relationships. Understandably, because she has normalized her past abuse and views herself as an object to be sexualized, she does not believe herself worthy of Forrest's expressions of unconditional love and regard, the very antithesis of her other experiences with male figures. Hence, whenever Forrest expressed affection toward Jenny without also treating her like a sexual object, she convinced herself that he did not really love her. Every time he got too close, she …show more content…
By analyzing her resistance, making her unconscious motives conscious, and working through transference distortions, Jenny should learn to understand how her old patterns of avoidance, numbing, and denial continue to influence and direct her thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Because many adult survivors of CSA have difficulties entering into and sustaining a clinical relationship, it is especially important to, from the beginning, 1) establish a strong therapeutic alliance and 2) maintain a consistent analytic framework. With regard to the former, Jenny would never have trusted the therapist with all the previous information had he not utilized supportive interventions such as reassurance, empathy, and a non-judgmental attitude. The importance of building trust cannot be overemphasized. Though some degree of trust may be presumed from the outset of other therapeutic relationships, those with traumatic experiences often suffer from deformed or damaged capacities for trust and intimacy. Since ordinary boundaries were not observed in the formative years of Jenny's early childhood, the client struggled to form a reliable and secure inner representation of trusted people. By establishing a safe environment, the therapist can then explore the client's defenses and resistances so that she