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The following is a character analysis from the viewpoint of Rogerian Phenomenological theory. The personality is that of Will Hunting from the movie Good Will Hunting. The theoretical concepts include Personality Structure, Process, Growth and Development, Pathology, and Change.

Phenomenological Theory of Carl Rogers was selected as the primary personality theory for the character analysis of Will, the main character of the movie Good Will Hunting. The reason for selection of this theory is its simplicity and its applicability to the personality description and changes that Will undergoes. Originally, the idea was to use Freudian theory to analyze the character, however, not much is known about the character’s childhood and early development, other than his physical abuse. Details about the characters childhood and development would have been necessary in order to do justice to Freudian theory.
Rogerian theory on the other hand, lends itself nicely to what is known about this character. The theory’s components such as the drive for self-actualization, congruence between ideal and actual self, as well as distortions and denial defense mechanisms (Pervin et al., 2005) all are readily seen in the character’s journey toward change. Additionally, the therapeutic interventions used by the counselor in the movie contain the components of unconditional positive regard, acceptance, and empathy, all being elements of the Rogerian theory. The phenomenological Theory according to Rogers holds the hypothesis that the client is the expert in his or her experience and it is the therapist’s goal to provide the therapeutic environment of unconditional positive regard and empathic listening to help the client realize their highest potential. The client is thus led to experience harmony between their own self-concept and his or her life events.

Will is a young man who grew up in a tough section of Boston. He works as a janitor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology despite having prodigal talent for mathematics. He sees himself as forever remaining in this environment, having a dead end job and living in a run down apartment. He has a few loyal friends with whom he grew up and with whom he spends his free time, usually frequenting various pubs and engaging in occasional brawls. He has an extensive criminal record of various assault charges.
Will has a thirst for knowledge, is knowledgeable about a number of subjects and a genius in mathematics, able to solve math problems that puzzle the students at the university where he works as a janitor.
When described through the lens of the phenomenological theory, Will’s character lacks congruence of self and experience. His life experience of delinquency and low motivation is inconsistent with his great talent and potential. He experiences defensiveness in most relationships and his self-view is plagued by low expectations of himself. Will defensively maintains his tough exterior so as to protect himself from rejection. He achieves little self-actualization.

Will’s self-view is of a tough loser who has to fight for survival and has low opinion of himself. His ideal self is to be tough, in control, and strike back at anyone who tries to get too close to him; to strike back at anyone before they hurt him and find out that he is vulnerable.
Will’s ideal self includes being tough and aggressive so that people do not hurt him; this stems from his childhood abuse, where the people who should have loved him and cared for him failed him miserably. Another part of his ideal self is to be in control and invulnerable to pain; however, he is emotionally stunted and unable to make headway in his personal as well as professional life, instead choosing a menial job that does not make use of his great talents; he knows that he is vulnerable. The only people that he trusts are the loyal friends that he grew up with.
The phenomenological theory’s concept of self-consistency and congruence states that individuals try to maintain their own self-structure and behave in a way that is consistent with this self-structure (Pervin et al., 2005). Since Will sees himself as a loser, he maintains congruence between this self-view and experience by acting like a thug and getting into situations that reinforce this self-view such as getting into fights and in trouble with the law.
Process
The phenomenological theory’s view is that each individual strives for self-actualization, that is fulfillment of one’s inherent capabilities. This drive is apparent in Will when he endeavors to satisfy his thirst for knowledge; despite his vulnerability and sense of guilt, he reads and is knowledgeable about many subjects. He takes up the challenges of solving the difficult math problems that are put on the board in the hallway of MIT by professor Lambert.
Another aspect of Phenomenological theory is that individuals try to maintain the congruence between their self-concept and experience. A mismatch between this self concept and experience results in defensive distortion. This is evident in Will’s behavior as he sees anyone who tries to get through to him as a threat and distorts attempts of those who are trying to help him as assaults on the safety of his defensiveness; their attempts to help him are misconstrued as pity. He denies that he needs help.
Growth and Development
Will acts with anger and defensiveness toward most people. He feels that life does not challenge his intellectual abilities but at the same time he maintains a lifestyle that is beneath him, thus experiencing incongruence; he also experiences incongruence between his need to be close to someone and his fear of intimacy; He reacts with anger and defensiveness at attempts of others to help him and feels that they are trying to pity him or attack him, thus distorting people’s motives; This is apparent when his girlfriend Skylar professes her love for him and asks him to move to California with her. This makes Will take up the defense and his fear of intimacy causes him to lash out and break up with Skylar.
Professor Lambert takes him under his wing, recognizing the great talent which he compares to Srinivasa Ramanujan, a self-taught Indian mathematician with no formal training whose theories influence mathematicians to this day. Lambert connects Will with various therapists whose attempts to treat Will meet with Will’s justified contempt seeing that they are pretty much frauds. Finally, Lambert turns to his former college friend Sean Maguire, a therapist, who has a few demons of his own, one being not being able to move past his wife’s death. Despite initial usual resistance by Will, Maguire shows him that true intimacy involves acceptance of the other person despite knowing not particularly attractive idiosyncrasies about them and shows him that that is what makes close relationships great.

Phenomenological Theory’s view of pathology includes defensive maintenance of self and incongruence between self and experience (Pervin et al, 2005). Will desperately maintains his tough exterior despite attempts by others to help him; he experiences a great sense of guilt at being physically abused as a child; There is an incongruence between his prodigal talents and his actual achievement in life as well as between his need for intimacy and his defensiveness when faced with becoming close to someone. His defensive maintenance of self is apparent in his attempt to thwart any therapeutic attempts and his need to lash out when Skylar asks him to move to California with her. He also resists Lambert’s attempt to get him on a path to a successful future in mathematics.
Will’s therapist Sean Maguire recognizes Will’s defensiveness and incongruence and tells him that he will go through life without truly knowing anyone due to his fear of getting close to people. Will tends to strikes back before he is even attacked. This is shown in the movie when professor Lambert tells Sean Maguire, Will’s therapist, “Be careful, he will exploit any vulnerabilities you have and jump on them”. Will has an enormous sense of lingering guilt caused by his childhood abuse. He thinks that he caused the abuse and brought it on himself.

The concept of change according to the Phenomenological Theory is fostered by therapeutic atmosphere of unconditional positive regard, genuineness, emphatic understanding, active listening, and finally, congruence between self and experience. Acceptance brings about change. Rogers’ hypothesis states that if the therapist, instead of attempting to change the client, strives to accept the client unconditionally, change will follow naturally (Elliot and Freire, 2007).
Will’s therapist accepts him as he is and is able to penetrate through his defensiveness. The therapist also experiences a change as a result of interaction with Will by realizing that he has put his life on hold since his wife’s passing; Will achieves a breakthrough when he realizes that his childhood abuse was not his fault. The therapist uses empathic understanding to achieve this breakthrough. Maguire is unperturbed by Will’s defensiveness and verbal aggression. He recognizes that Will has not experienced much of life beyond his immediate environment. Will realizes that he has to take chances and be open to experiences, whether it be in relationships or in his career.
Maguire sees that what is important to Will is to achieve self-efficacy in personal relationships and that Will is not ready to jump start his career in mathematics before this goal is achieved. This is shown in the dialog between Lambert and Maguire where Lambert pushes Maguire to work with Will on his career goals lest the world lose a talent comparable to Einstein’s. Maguire replies that Einstein had two marriages, both of them “train-wrecks”, hardly saw his children, and one of Einstein’s sons ended up in an asylum. Maguire doesn’t want Will to end up professionally superior with his personal life in tatters.
The therapist also shows congruence and genuineness by realizing through interaction with Will that he has put his life on hold since his wife’s death and decides to do something about it. Congruence and genuineness are two of the six key conditions of therapeutic change according to Rogers but are the ones most difficult to put into practice (Wachtel, 2007).
Maguire confronts Will about not knowing what he wants. Confrontation is sometimes necessary in order to offer problem-solving experience to the client (Knight, 2007). Therapy is very largely a function of the tensions between the imperative of genuineness and the imperative of unconditional positive regard. That is, one might depict the effective therapist’s stance as one of striving for unconditional positive regard and inevitably failing in some respects and, therefore, as being confronted with the question of how to be genuine about that failure while still being therapeutic (Wachtel, 2007).
Will gradually responds to therapy and becomes more self-efficacious in interpersonal relationships and professional achievement. Will realizes that his ideal-self includes being open to experiences, good or bad, especially in close interpersonal relationships. This is consistent with the client-centered hypothesis of Carl Rogers which postulates that successful psychotherapy leads to increased congruence between the client’s self-concept and his ideal-self-concept. Moreover, Rogers suggested that this congruence comes about primarily through the movement of the self-concept toward the ideal-self-concept (Schuldt and Truax, 1968). Will eventually chooses to accept a mathematics position and decides to pursue Skylar to give their relationship a chance.

Will’s childhood caretakers totally failed to provide unconditional positive regard, which according to Rogerian theory is what every person craves. Also according to Rogers every person has actualization tendency to move in the right direction given favorable circumstances (Dolliver, 1995). Will’s therapist gives Will the freedom to realize his potential and doesn’t push him in any direction until Will is ready to move on. Thus the therapist follows the Rogerian perspective that Will possesses the competence to direct his own life. Additionally, the therapist’s acceptance of all aspects of Will’s personality enables Will to finally come to a breakthrough.
Other external factors influencing Will is the environment he lives in combined with the internal factor of his own low self-efficacy or motivation in changing these conditions. Will perceives himself as remaining in this environment forever. Professor Lambert’s attempts at utilizing Will’s talents by setting up various opportunities for him are initially met with great resistance. Will even sends one of his friends, Chuckie, to an important job interview, knowing that Chuckie will make a complete mockery of the whole thing. This is further evidence that Will tries to defensively maintain his current sense of self.
One other internal factor influencing Will is his great intellectual capacity for math which makes him believe that no job can challenge him enough. His talent for this field greatly surpasses that of Lambert’s and he is even sickened by the way Lambert struggles with concepts that come so easy to Will. He sees the world as never challenging him enough to even try. As he says to Lambert when the professor states in a moment of frustration that he regrets of ever meeting Will :“ I wish I never met you either, that way I would have to watch you fumble and screw things up.”

Conclusion
The Phenomenological theory, with its emphasis on self-actualization, congruence of self and experience, and ideal self, provides an excellent framework for client change. The therapist use of unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding, and letting the client be the expert in control of his change at his own pace is illustrated in the relationship between the movie’s main character Will and his therapist Maguire. This relationship eventually leads to the main character’s growth and resolving of his conflicts which accounts for the positive change in his character.

Reference List
Dolliver, R. H. (1995); Carl Rogers’ Personality Theory and Psychotherapy as a Reflection of His Life Experience and Personality. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 35; 111; DOI: 10.1177/00221678950354006
Elliot, R. and Freire, E. (2007); Classical Person-Centered and Experiential Perspectives on Rogers (1957); Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, Vol. 44, No. 3, 285–288.
Good Will Hunting (Miramax Collector’s Series) (1998) Starring: Robin Williams, Matt Damon Director: Gus Van Sant, Rating: R (Restricted)
Kahn, E., (1996); The Intersubjective Perspective and the Client-Centered Approach: Are They One at Their Core?; Journal of Psychotherapy, Volume 33, Number 1.
Knight, T. A. (2007); Showing Clients the Doors: Active Problem-Solving in Person-Centered Psychotherapy; Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, Vol. 17, No. 1, 111–124.
Pervin, L., Cervone, D., Oliver, J. (2005). HS5214: Theories of personality [Custom]. New York: Wiley.
Schuldt, W. J. and Truax, C. B., (1968); Client Awareness of Adjustment in Self and Ideal Self Concepts; Journal of Counseling Psychology, Vol. IS, No. 2,158-1S9.
Sollod, R. N. (1978); Carl Rogers and the Origins of Client-Centered Therapy;Journal of Professional Psychology.
Wachtel, P. L. (2007); Carl Rogers and the Larger Context of Therapeutic Thought;Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, Vol. 44, No. 3, 279–284.