For our final movie review we were to watch “Billy Elliot” a movie about a boy who went from boxing training to ballet dancing. His widowed father and older brother disapprove of this transfer, but soon take an understanding and appreciation to it.
From the start of the movie you get the understanding that Billy has a passion for music. This passion for music turns into curiosity for dancing, and ballet in particular. When he first begins to skip boxing training for ballet lessons he shows signs of resistance. He shows signs of validation-seeking because he is sneaking around and hiding the fact that he likes ballet and no longer want s to box. He does all sorts of thing to hide this fact from his father and the other kids. This later turns into desire, and growth-seeking because he strives to better himself as a dancer so badly. Billy goes to the library to read about better ballet techniques, crisper moves, and what makes ballet so great. Billy is so motivated that he actively pursues the ballet instructor when his father catching him and prohibits him from continuing ballet. This shows that Billy has the desire and drive to reach self-actualization when it comes to ballet dancing.
Billy’s brother and father are in a struggle themselves over conditions of worth. Since in the movie the miners are on strike, Billy’s brother and father must make the choice to join the union strike, or cross the picket line. Conditions of worth are judged on the behavior and personal characteristics (the self) as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. This eventually leads Billy’s brother and father to join the strike because they have the need for positive regard that sensitizes the individual to attend to the acceptance of others. In this case joining the strike symbolizes unity and support for their fellow miners, and eventually conforming to what everyone else is doing and being accepted as the majority.
During one of the most climatic scenes when the ballet instructor confronts Billy and his family because Billy missed his most important ballet audition for the Royal Ballet School, you see struggle Billy faces to be accepted by both his family and the ballet instructor. Billy obviously has a stronger connection and desire for acceptance from his brother and father, thus leading him to not dancing. This scene is very intense and ultimately causes Billy to “lose control” or gain control of his dancing (depends how you view it) as he begins dancing everywhere and seemingly with regard for his health. As the movie fast-forwards to Christmas, Billy’s motivation for dance leads him to sneak into the boxing gym to teach his friend simple ballet moves. Billy’s passion for ballet jumps off the screen in this scene and eventually leads to yet another major confrontation with his father over Billy’s passion for dance. Billy internalizes his emotions for dance throughout the entire movie until this point where he lets lose in front of his father and seemingly moves beyond feeling and need for acceptance by everyone else and what they think of him, and begins to do what makes him happy. This if the beginning of where we see Billy’s ‘emergence of the self.” Billy knew all along what and who he was, but finally he is no longer afraid of showing it to the world. Billy has finally reached the point of self-actualization in the movie.
In conclusion, this movie was by far one of the least interesting in my mind but it did have multiple relevant connections to our book. Billy seemed to evolve throughout the movie from a boy that needed validation from his family and his peers; to a boy that knew what he wanted and went for it, even though most people didn’t understand it. This showed a great deal of maturity and a high degree of self-actualization for Billy.
Terms: Validation-Seeking, Desire, Growth-Seeking, Motivation, Drive, Self-Actualization, Conditions of Worth, Need, Emergence of Self.
The story of Billy Elliot’s development was inspirational. Against poverty, social rejection, and grief of his lost mother, Billy was able to communicate his spirit and emotion through dance. Children often find it difficult to communicate their anxiety, stress, and sadness in literal ways. With great inner strength, Billy endured the hardships forced on him by the outside world so that he could persist with his goal to become a ballet dancer. Integrated with Billy’s story are motivational characteristics such as psychological wishes, subliminal motivators, defense mechanisms, self-actualization, and autonomy. These characteristics clearly identify Billy’s thoughts, behaviors, and goals. Billy’s accomplishments are heartening, therefore the causes behind his actions can be used as tools to accomplish all goals for everyone.
Before any actions are taken, psychological wishes are present. Psychological wishes are ideal states we see ourselves being able to achieve; and when our current state does not match that then we are influenced to engage in some activity, thought, or feeling that brings us to that ideal state. When Billy was in boxing class, his current state was that he had to go to boxing and attempt to improve in that arena. However, his ideal state was to practice ballet. Across the room everyday he would see the girls dancing and would look over with wonder and excitement. One day Billy decided to change his situation by joining the girls in their ballet practice, his adaptive unconscious decided the environment free of his friends, coach, and dad was safe enough to engage in this change. In addition, the adaptive unconscious set a goal to participate in the practice, view ballet as an acceptable extracurricular activity, and finally join the group. In the movie it was clean that Billy was a bit uncertain about his move, however he did it anyway. While dancing (in several emotion filled scene’s throughout the movie), Billy communicated his sadness for his mother dying, excitement for new friendships, and stress from living in an uncommunicative family. Billy was implicitly motivated to dance and express himself. Implicit motivation consists of emotions, thoughts, and opinions, however they are in our unconscious. Therefore, implicit motivation encourages these actions without us concretely agreeing.
However, when Billy did realize his passion for ballet and dance, he participated in direct action to suppress it at first. When prompted by the ballet teacher, Billy could not decide if he would come back each week or not; however since he did not give the shoes back, he silently agreed. This idea of pushing away a thought and desire represents suppression. Much like Billy found out, suppression is only temporary and sooner or later the truth comes out. In addition, Billy was subliminally motivated in a way. This means he experienced a mild stimulation to be a dancer, or whoever he wanted to be. After the ballet teacher and Billy read aloud together Billy’s mothers letter, it was clear that the mother had given Billy her grace to always be himself. Once Billy accepted who his was and what he wanted to do, he was able to grow toward becoming a better ballet dancer. In essence, Billy was experiencing ego development; movement towards what he was capable of achieving. The ballet teacher saw great strength and improvement in Billy and he was able to benefit from her support. Relatedness is required to achieve positive ego development and self-actualization. When Billy felt that emotional connection, deep care and concern she had for him, and felt important to her, he was able to respond to those positive feelings in a strong way. He became a great ballet dancer because he knew he could do it and because someone else did too.
Looking from a holistic and positive psychology perspective, when one thing happens, it affects the whole person (mind and body). When Billy’s mom died, it affected Billy as a person, as well as the family as a whole. Without doing something like talking or engaging positively with one another, the family and each member’s development was stunted. However, when Billy began dancing and engaging in something he was passionate about, the entire family had to go along with him because when one member does something it affects the whole. When the father is in the gym and sees Billy dancing with his friend and on his own, he sees Billy’s strength and potential to live. He tells the brother “we have to give him a chance!” Once the family is somewhat supportive of Billy’s goal, they begin building up his strength and engaging in ways that communicate Billy’s competencies and capabilities.
In addition to having social support (even if it wasn’t at first from his father and brother), having personal inner strength to adhere to what is best for the self is just as difficult discover. By attending ballet class week after week and then by working individually with the ballet teacher, Billy was leaving fear behind and trading it in for courage to achieve what he truly was capable of. If Billy had always chosen to not anger his father, he would have become an extremely angry, anxious, and sad individual (much like his brother). Instead, Billy worked towards self-actualization, to be an autonomous person, and to be open to experiences like practicing/dancing ballet and trying out for ballet school. Billy showed that he had the strength to be strong on his own and once he moved past that and a had the strength of the support of family, he was able to truly do his best.
Growth towards self-actualization sounds great, because through it Billy was able to achieve his goal. However, this movement creates great tension, anxiety, and stress. Billy and his father had to experience so many of their own personal insecurities through this development. At times, like when the dad runs away after seeing Billy dance in front of him, these insecurities seem to be too much to handle. However, the family as a whole (Billy, his dad, his brother, and his grandmother) work through it so that the Billy can succeed. In the end, it was not the conditions of worth (characteristics identified by society as desirable) that allowed Billy to be himself, but his excellent organismic valuation process (capability for judging what experiences promote growth) that allowed him to achieve his dream.
ME Terms: Anxiety, stress, inner strength, goal, psychological wishes, subliminal motivators, defense mechanisms, self-actualization, autonomy, thoughts, behaviors, goals, ideal states, achieve, present state, adaptive unconscious, implicit motivation, suppress, desire, subliminal motivation, ego development, movement towards what you’re capable of, relatedness, emotional connection, deep care and concern, importance to someone else, holistic, positive psychology, whole person, development, inner strength, anxious, autonomous, growth, tension, stress, insecurities, conditions of worth, organismic valuation process
Billy Elliott is a movie about a young boy’s development and growth through his youth. Billy initially practices ballet in secret from his family because it is what he enjoys, but does not tell them about it because it is unacceptable for a boy to dance. Social norms pressure him to participate in more masculine sports so he does boxing as well. During this period of the movie Billy is behaving in a way that is validation seeking. He hides the side of him that is socially unacceptable and tries to hide the part that isn’t; this depicts a clear inner conflict for Billy. Throughout the movie we see this completely change. The relationships between Billy and his family become healthier (his need for love/belonging becomes satisfied) and we see Billy accept who he is and do what he wants in such as way that allows him to gain the “esteem” level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Billy is only 11 years old and yet the movie depicts drastic changes, growth, and individual strivings by this young character. These changes are seen both with the quality of his interpersonal relationships as well as within his sense of self.
In the beginning of the movie, Billy partakes in boxing in order to live up to his father’s expectations. He is extrinsically motivated to practice and become good at it so that he receives praise from his father/family. Because this behavior is desirable by the social public as well as his family Billy needs this validation and therefore acts in such a way that will provide him with the positive feedback he desires. We also see a bit of risk-taking by Billy in that he keeps his ballet a secret from his family. While he understands the consequences of his choices, he is still unwilling to give up something is such an intrinsic part of who he is. At one point in the movie, Billy tells his brother and dad that he would rather give up his childhood than give up dance. This statement really indicates how important dance is to Billy, and how it becomes such a part of who he is.
One of the biggest themes of the movie that ties into the chapters is Billy’s feeling of control over his life. Billy feels that everyone wants to tell him what to do and control his life but really he just wants to have control over his own life (he has an external locus of control). He feels that to become self-actualized he must have control over his environment which is something he has never really had. This is really shown in the scene where he is yelling at his instructor about how she screwed up her own life and is trying to tell him what to do just like everyone else. At one point, we see the culmination of people trying to control Billy’s life. We see the dance instructor, Billy’s brother, and father arguing about what he should do. Then we see Billy cope with this by dancing. He has an angry frustrated facial expression, but it is clear that he is using his ballet to deal with the situation. However, the scene does become more upbeat and we really see how he is experiencing personal growth and acceptance of himself.
When Billy is dancing he feels control over his life- he can choose what his next move is and where he is going to go with it. When he is at his rehearsal he tells the judges that he feels that everything goes away when he dances and that it feels good. This is almost like a coping mechanism for Billy; it allows him to control his life and how he is feeling.
Emotions really seem to take over so many aspects of his life that dance allows him to then take control over those emotions. Additionally, Billy’s intrinsic motivation is much more rewarding for him than the extrinsic rewards of other activities such as boxing. Throughout much of the movie we see Billy heavily practicing ballet on his own time and trying to be the best he can be. Billy is clearly able to visualize what his success would look like (he sees his ideal state), and he works extremely hard to achieve that state.
Billy’s father’s reaction to Billy’s choices is also important for the movie. Initially he is furious about a boy participating in ballet because it is socially unacceptable. Discussions between Billy and his father are often heated and very emotional. Billy argues that people who participate in ballet have just as much athleticism while the father argues that he works too hard for his money to waste it on his son taking ballet classes. There is even a level of aggression that is depicted by Billy’s dad as well as by his brother. This made me think of the section in the chapter about doing evil and about how nobody wants to be evil but that we are capable of doing things that are evil. I think Billy’s father’s behavior really shows this. It is obvious that he cares about his son, and the family is going through very difficult things, so he takes it out on him that he is not acting appropriately. However, at the end of the movie we see how proud he is of Billy getting into the dance school. He works extra hard to get enough money for him to go to the audition, takes him there, and then understands that his support is important to such a young boy’s life and mindset. While Billy is at the audition the judges tell them that Billy cannot be successful without the support of his family. From this point in the movie forward, it is really shown that his father has accepted Billy for who he is and supports him. He accepts that Billy is an autonomous, competent person who can do what he sets his mind to. According to the chapter, this is an important part of interpersonal relationships and heavily affects their quality.
Billy also experiences what the chapter terms as self-confirming cycles of high and low engagement. This idea captures the intensity and emotional quality of a person’s participation during somewhat difficult undertakings to control the outcomes that matter to them. As stated previously, Billy had felt little control over his life but was able to fully engage himself in dance and overcome the social stigma of his behavior. In this instance, Billy has perceived control and is challenge seeking. He knows that the situation will be and is difficult but chooses to go for it anyway. The chapter terms this as participating in growth behaviors. This is shown in that Billy puts himself in an uncomfortable situation in order to grow himself into a more open person.
Another minor, but important, portion of the movie is Billy’s relationship with his dance instructor. Billy and his family have to deal with the death of his mother. Billy has to develop ways to cope with his without the social support of his family and their struggle with poverty. The chapter’s discussion of Freud and attachment could be used to demonstrate the relationship that Billy develops with his dance instructor. Freud’s view of psychodynamics and unconscious motivation would say that Billy’s behavior and choices are a result of his loss of relationship with his mom; therefore he reaches out to his instructor as a mother figure. While realistically, Freud would probably stretch this into more than what it is, however it does seem plausible that Billy would be looking for a female figure in his life in order to fill the void of losing his mother.
The chapter related theme of this movie really seems to be personal growth. The chapter defines growth needs as things that can be met once deficiency needs are met. Lack of these makes the individual feel restless and discontent, and the growth need makes the individual feel a need to fulfill their personal potential. Teacher tells the story about Swan Lake and how the princess had to become a swan completely forever to become what she wanted to me. This seems to be a metaphor for how Billy needs to sacrifice to be what he wants to be and to self-actualize and become what he wants to be. While that example shows Billy’s growth needs his deficiency needs are also depicted. Billy’s physiological needs, and safety are met for the most part, however he does not seem to have a lot of love/belonging need or esteem need fulfilled throughout most of the movie. He eventually gains this from his dance instructor and then becomes close with his friend. However, this really changes throughout the move: once Billy’s family accepts him he experiences love and belonging and once that support is received he is able to fulfill his need to esteem and self-acceptance. This feeling is especially shown toward the end when Billy “stands up” for himself by dancing kind of “at” his father when he walks in on him practicing; I found this scene to be very powerful. It is then that he is able to participate in growth behaviors and work toward self-actualization.
Overall, Billy Elliott depicts many aspects of personal striving and individual growth and does a good job of portraying the many aspects and experiences that effect how we develop and grow. Billy’s ability to eventually accept himself, for who he is, causes his family to also eventually accept him; this allows Billy to grow and develop in a healthy way and heads towards an actualized version of himself.
ME Terms: Individual growth, personal striving, psychodynamics, unconscious motivation, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, safety needs, physiological needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, self-actualization, growth needs, deficiency needs, validation seeking, growth seeking, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, socially desirable behaviors, restlessness, discontentment, feedback, risk-taking, desires, control, locus of control, self-acceptance, facial expression, coping, emotions, aggression, evil, reward, ideal state, openness, autonomy, self-confirming cycles of high and low engagement, Freud, attachment, competency, warmth, respect, and interpersonal relationships.
In watching the movie Billy Elliot, I cannot help but think of the line where Billy resists his ballet teachers’ constant critiquing by telling her basically that “you push and push, all you want to do is push, because your life is so ****** up!” This confrontation sums up the essence of the movie for me; it reveals humanistic psychology and a holistic view within Billy’s family dynamics as they experience dramatic life changes. Through the loss of this family’s Wife and Mother, the picketing for laborers rights for the Dad and the oldest boy which means not earning money, caring for a dependent parent or grandmother and raising two boys.
The movie starts out showing Billy doing things that his family expects from him by caring for his Grandma, boxing and going to school. Billy’s interest in music becomes evident in the scene where he is listening to his Brothers record and playing the piano and both times his interest is discouraged, stopped or interrupted. The scene of Boxing shows Billy is so distracted by the piano playing that he disgraces his trainers’ efforts because his interest in music being expressed through dance has piqued his interest.
Billy’s subliminal unconscious preference for expressing himself through music is intrinsically motivating him to take ballet instead of boxing. It is also this choice that causes Billy to feel anxiety, tension and psychological incongruence with himself and his family and societal expectations. That is why Billy hides his ballet slippers and pretends to be going to boxing classes. This incongruence and the struggle for self-actualization is not an easy transition for Billy nor his family primarily because of the lack of communication and the deficiency needs of support, love, belongingness and self-esteem.
Billy has always done what has been expected of him; he unconsciously adapts within his family and the transition toward an organismic value and conditions of worth through unconditional regard from his family is what Billy desires. Billy’s desire to dance is suppressed due to his Brother’s arrest; Billy adapts to his families expectations. This is evident through the scene where the ballet teacher comes to the house to see why Billy missed the audition and through this knowledge Billy’s Brother ridicules ballet and demands that Billy dance. Billy is not mature enough or assertive enough to stand up for himself yet because he seeking validation of his worth that has just been stripped away.
Christmas day reveals that Billy’s implicit motivation and growth seeking behaviors are risking rejection from his father and expressing his desire to dance. This is a pivotal point of change for Billy and his Father. Billy has stepped into the self-actualization process to express his desire to dance not for his teacher or because of her pushing but because his dance allows his to express who he is. Up until this point the only real unconditional positive regard Billy has known is through a letter his Mom wrote to him before she died.
I thought it was a very interesting perspective in the movie where Billy and the ballet teachers’ daughter were up in the daughters’ room discussing their families and the associations of intimacy, dance and sex that were expressed through the eyes of eleven year olds. It was this conversation that challenged Billy to consider why his teacher would coach him and he had to come to the point of wanting to dance for himself and not because he wanted to please his teacher. When Billy danced in front of his Dad this experience expressed his valuation that he wanted to be a dancer, that he wanted to learn how to dance and be given the chance to express himself.
At the point where Billy’s Dad seeks out information from the former ballet teacher about the school of dancing audition, Billy can see his ideal state. It is heartwarming to see the extent that this Dad would go to in order to support and provide a means to get Billy to the audition. Growth motivation is necessary for the audition and you can see how Billy and his Dad struggle through the uncomfortable experience of this school and the expectations and I wondered if Billy would get in as well until he responded to the last question on how dancing makes him feel.
The humanistic psychology perspective is evident through Billy’s reluctant striving toward growth and his self-realization process. It is also evident in his eventual turning away from the façade of self-concealment and living his life according to others expectations of himself. The movie takes the viewer through the struggles of the self-actualization process and how difficult this is for individuals and families to accept, adapt to and to be willing to sacrifice for.
A thought provoking movie from the parental perspective and the expectations parents have for children. It takes some real focused attention toward who are kids really are, I could empathize with this family’s crisis mode unconsciously inflicting incongruence and what might have become maladaptive behavior in Billy had the father not become open to accept Billy’s desire to dance.
Terms: humanistic psychology, holistic positive perspective, self-actualization behaviors, organismic value, conditions of worth, validation seeking, growth motivation, deficiency motivation, incongruence, implicit motivation, adaptive unconsciousness, relatedness, ideal states, growth motivation
The movie Billy Elliot was about a boy, Billy, who became interested in ballet rather than the boxing he was currently doing. His father and brother were currently coal miners on strike, and they were the biggest critics of Billy’s dancing. Billy tried to hide the dancing from them, but his father caught him dancing at one point. He was impressed with Billy’s dancing skills and tried to go back to the mines before the strike was over in order to make enough money for Billy to audition at the Royal Ballet School. His oldest son and the other miners stop him and help raise the money for the audition. After some bumps in the road at the audition, Billy is eventually accepted. At the end, we see Billy fourteen years later as a professional dancer with his family in the audience supporting him.
The first thing I noticed in this movie was self-actualization. Billy first resisted the idea of being a ballet dancer, because it did not match with the male gender identity that others placed on him. However, once he started dancing he realized that he had natural talent is this area and that he also enjoyed it. He reached a point of autonomy when he was willing to show his dance skills to other and especially when he left by himself for dance school. He was open to trying this experience, but he was not willing to be open with the world about what he was doing. However, as the movie progressed and Billy became more confident with his dancing, he became more open. This is why he was willing to audition for the school and eventually make it as a professional dancer.
There was also a lot of humanistic psychology in this movie. Billy’s dance teacher was the first to really push his to grow in this way, but she was also setting expectations of her own to fulfill. During this time, Billy was still lying to his dad about what he was doing, and this showed that he was not comfortable with what he was doing and was not ready for this growth experience. As he began to realize that ballet was what he was talented at and passionate about, he stopped caring so much about what other people thought about it. His dad also began to support him towards the end, and he supported him in areas that would be important to humanistic psychology.
Growth and deficiency needs on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are also present in this movie. Billy wanted to have a sense of belonging in his family, and that is why he pretended to be boxing rather than dancing. He also wanted to be able to have self esteem, and he was not feeling very confident about breaking away from his gender norm. His safety, security, and psychological needs were also challenged at this time because of his brother and father’s strike. Psychologically he was worried about them getting arrested, the strike not ending, or them running out of money to eat. His father and brother also appeared emotionally cold to Billy to, so he didn’t have a close bond with someone that he could go to for help or advice except maybe his grandmother. These were all deficiency needs that Billy struggled with. Though the strike didn’t end when Billy began dancing, ballet gave him an outlet from dealing with the stress of it. He still cared about the strike, but he realized that it was not necessary for him to worry about it. He trusted his father to care for his security and safety, and he began to think more of himself as a person and as a dancer. He addressed these deficiency needs through ballet, which gave him the opportunity to tackle growth needs. Growth needs are usually experienced in uncomfortable situations, because the person is stepping out of their comfort zone. We see this several times with Billy such as when he first joins ballet class, practicing with the ballet instructor in private, showing other people his dancing, auditioning for the dance school, and eventually leaving for the school. He also does some things in private such as practicing ballet and getting a book to study ballet. These actions show that he was not ready for growth in this area at that time.
Billy struggled with his conditions of worth. He believed that the only way he would be accepted in his family was to box. He knew that he would never be good at it, because he didn’t care. However, he kept participating for his brother and dad’s sake. When they found out that he was attending ballet, he thought they no longer valued or loved him. Billy had a tough relationship with his father, and his father did not really express his love to Billy. Billy thought boxing was the only way to have a connection with his dad, and he was worried about losing that bond. Billy did not feel like his father had unconditional positive regard for him and it made him question his organismic valuation.
Billy faced a significant amount of incongruence when looking at his current self compared to his ideal self. His ideal self was a professional ballet dancer, and his current self was someone taking ballet lessons and hiding them from everyone. Billy moved towards congruence by practicing ballet more, agreeing to go to an audition, and letting other people see him dance. His biggest steps in this process were letting his dad see him dance, going to the audition, and going to the dance school. At the end we see there is congruence between Billy’s ideal and current self. Billy’s father also had to deal with incongruence in terms of his expectations for Billy. He expected Billy to engage in more masculine tasks such as boxing and working in the coal mines. It was difficult for him to see that his son was taking ballet classes instead. Billy’s father chose to decrease this incongruence by changing his expectations for Billy. He chose to support Billy in his dreams and adopted Billy’s ideal state as his own hope for Billy.
ME terms: self-actualization, humanistic psychology, growth needs, deficiency needs, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard, organismic valuation, incongruence, ideal self, current self, congruence
To look at the movie from a psychodynamic perspective, Billy’s father is a perfect example. He was born and raised in a coal family and has worked in the mines his whole life. Billy’s brother has been brought up the same way. This view also says that people change very little after puberty. We can see Billy’s father exhibit the same characteristics throughout the movie. He does come to a little revelation at the end of the movie, but it is not a different personality, it was as if his father did not want to embrace his son for who he was and was confused about how to react to Billy. I feel that it was his same personality, but just hidden at the beginning of the movie.
We can see the unconscious in Billy and his dancing. When asked why he dances, Billy’s reply was I don’t’ know. Something in his unconscious leads him to want to dance, to need to dance. These thoughts, feelings, and desires existed at an unconscious level. Billy has implicit motivation to dance, yet it is revealed in his dancing because he is so passionate.
We can also see suppression in Billy’s behavior. He attempts to push down his feelings in front of his father. He tries not to let his excitement for dancing show and hides his ballet shoes under the mattress. This is not a mental suppression, but it is more of a physical repression.
I can also see ego development in progress in the movie. Billy’s id wants him to dance all the time, his ego is trying to filter that to align with what his super ego thinks is right.
This movie is also full of self actualization. Billy’s family is struggling to meet the some basic needs, however, Billy’s needs are being met for the most part. He is in pursuit of self actualization and this can be seen in his behaviors and how he acts throughout the movie. He is making growth choices in trying to learn ballot and doing things that will help him grow as a person. He is also honest with himself. This is painfully obvious at some points in the movie. One in particular is when his father catches him and he dances in front of him. This is different, unpopular and non conformist with his father’s views on what makes a man.
He is situationally positioning himself for peak experiences by going to the audition to try out for the dance school. Without that, he would not be able to have the experience we saw at the end of the movie. He has given up his defensiveness when he gives in to his instructor’s request to continue practicing. He had started to resist her corrections but determines that she is ultimately correct.
He lets the self emerge when he dances, he kind of disappears was his response when asked how it feels to dance. Billy is also open to experience. When he is dancing in front of people, he is baring his soul and it does not get more open than that.
Billy Elliot is a movie about a young man that has a passion to dance. It is outside the norm for boys his age to do that, but he does eventually gain the support from his family to continue with his goal. This movie presented many concepts that can be found within the text book. Namely, the concepts are derived from chapter 14 and 15.
The movie has several psychodynamic concepts that are similar to the ones found in chapter 14. It seemed as though Billy’s dad was trying to suppress the fact that son liked to dance. He didn’t want him to be a “puff”, and encouraged his son to do boxing instead. There also appeared to be conflict between the ego and the id. This can be clearly seen in Billy’s brother. The brother id encouraged him to riot during the union’s revolt when his ego was telling him to obey and respect the law. The id side seemed to win that argument. It is also plain to see that all of the characters had a strong ego, and they did not want it to be hurt. The father and brother to Billy employed defense mechanisms to protect themselves. They both displaced their pent up anxiety and frustrations on Billy. Billy must have had a strong ego effectance. He was able to cope with the challenges, demands, and opportunities the environment presented him with.
The movie had a lot of personal growth in it. All of the characters were able to move up on the hierarchy of needs. Billy was able to move further towards self-actualization when he finally received the proper love and support from his family. He was also able to gain self-esteem from the support and his good ability at the ballet. Therefore, Billy was able to fulfill all of his deficiency needs, and begin work on his growth needs. At the beginning of the movie, however, Billy has a lot of incongruence. He denies his inner desires for dance, and does boxing instead to be more socially acceptable. In doing so, Billy is putting on a façade. He is able to gain congruence and purse his dancing goals when his family supports him. Billy showcased many growth-seeking behaviors. He trained hard and saved up cash to make it to London. His Puff friend presented some validation-seeking behaviors. He dressed in women’s clothing and put on makeup in front of Billy so that maybe Billy would think that its ok or normal. None of Billys Ballet feats would have been possible if it were not for his relationship support. When his instructor and parents were in a supportive role, Billy was able to become autonomous and reach is full potential on his own. From the movie, I would say that Billy is a self-defined person. He has his own desires, and he follows them without caring about what is socially acceptable or not.
The movie Billy Elliott is all about growing and the motivation each character had to do so. The most growth occurred with Billy. From the very beginning, Billy had an unconscious desire to dance. He loved playing music. Even when he was boxing, he couldn’t help but dance when music was playing. His father, however, expected Billy to box, not dance. Therefore, Billy had unmatching implicit and explicit motivation, something that occurs unconsciously. Billy’s implicit motivation was to dance but he wanted to please his father and brother so he had explicit motivation to box. Another concept of the unconscious is adaptive unconscious. This part of the unconscious set goals, initiates action, and makes judgments while we’re thinking about something else. A good example of this playing a role is when Billy is boxing and once the music starts, he begins to dance around the ring and is unable to box well. This also happens when he is punching the bag. This shows that although Billy wasn’t fully aware of the fact that he loved dancing, his unconscious knew.
Once this desire went into his conscious, Billy did what he could to dance. This began the process of developing his ego. Ego development is the progression towards what the individual could be, in terms of maturity, psychological growth, competence, and autonomy. Throughout the movie, Billy is constantly developing his ego. His choice to take dance classes rather than boxing classes shows his autonomy and the independence to make decisions based off of his wants and needs. He also became more competent because he learned through class and on his own how to become a better dancer, which met his psychological needs and therefore he grew psychologically. All these combined helped him mature very quickly for only being 11 years old. Billy’s father and brother also went through ego development after they accepted Billys dancing. They both became more mature as individuals by supporting Billy and going back to work, something that was difficult for both of them. Ego development leads to psychological well-being.
Throughout the movie, Billy was constantly growing. Almost every step he took was in the directed towards self-actualization, which is the process of realizing your talents, capacities, and potentials. This is done by being autonomous and open to experience. Billy did both of those things. For autonomy, Billy moved away from the expectations of his father and brother so that he could do something that made him truly happy, dance. He depended on himself to go to class, go talk to Miss when he got in trouble, and work hard to make it to the Ballet School audition. For openness, Billy realized at the very beginning that he loved dance and even though it wasn’t accepted, he was going to continue doing it. He became very mindful. Self-actualization needs can also be considered growth needs. Growth needs provide motivation to take actions to reach personal potential. Dancing was a growth need for Billy. It provided him with independence, competence, and happiness.
There are six behaviors that encourage growth, and Billy did all six. He made growth choices by taking the first dance class, going to talk to Miss, taking private dance classes, and going to the audition. He was honest with himself from the beginning in that he knew he loved to dance and he would do it no matter what. It took him awhile to be honest with his family, but he was eventually. He positioned himself for peak experiences by taking private classes with Miss and then doing the audition for the ballet school. Even though Billy was scared to go to the audition and didn’t think he’d make it, he still went to it. He gave up defensiveness by forgetting the fact that most people thought that dancing was for gay people. He also ignored that his family was not okay with his dancing. He let the self emerge by listening to his feelings and accepting his love for dance and pursuing it. He was open to experience by totally absorbing himself in dance and forgetting what anyone else thought.
Billy is a growth-seeking individual. This means that he does things to learn, improve, and reach his personal potential. He saw certain things in his life as an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills about dancing. He knew that Miss could help him with his problems and so he went to her for help, even though he knew that his father wouldn’t approve. An aspect of being a growth-seeking individual is that when adversities come along, they don’t slow them down. Billy’s father strongly disapproved of his dancing but he continued to do it because he loved it and it made him grow. The opposite of growth-seeking is validation-seeking. Individuals who are validation-seeking seek external validation to feel worth, competent, or likeable. They care more about the approval of others rather than what they personally think. An example of this in the movie is Billy’s father and brother. Although they both cared strongly about the strike, they were mainly involved in it because everyone else was and it was considered wrong to give up. Having this kind of worth lead Billy’s father and brother to be very anxious and angry all the time. This tends to be a side effect for individuals who are validation-seeking.
A concept similar to growth-seeking versus validation-seeking is causality orientations. There are two types: autonomy and control. Individuals with an autonomy causality orientation make decisions based off of their feelings and thoughts. They have an internal locus of control so they realize that the consequences of their actions are because of them. The opposite is control causality orientation. People with this type of orientation worry about external factors like money or other people’s opinions. Billy had an autonomy causality orientation. He made his decisions based off of his feelings and desires. He dances because he wants to. He took classes because he wanted to, even though it wasn’t accepted. Billy’s father and brother had control causality orientations. They didn’t accept Billys dancing because it wasn’t socially accepted. They stayed on the strike even though they had financial problems and high levels of stress because it wouldn’t be accepted to give up and go back to work. Eventually, however, Billy’s father and brother changed orientations because they realized it didn’t matter as much; therefore switching to an autonomy causality orientation.
Conditions of worth are a concept that effects the development of children into adulthood. There are two types: unconditional positive regard and conditional positive regard. Conditional positive regard means when a parent gives love or approval to a child when the child does things that they approve of. This can cause conflict with self-actualization and leads to tension and internal confusion because only some behaviors are accepted. This negative way of dealing with children can lead to maladjustment. Unfortunately, Billy’s father provided conditional positive regard most of the movie. He accepted Billys behavior when he would box or not dance, but he did not accept him when he would dance. Fortunately, Billy had the strength to make decisions for himself. The opposite of conditional positive regard is unconditional positive regard. This is when love and approval is given no matter what the child does. The child is accepted for who they are. Miss is one of the only people that gave Billy unconditional positive regard. From the very beginning, she believed in Billy and even though ballet for guys wasn’t socially acceptable, she accepted him. She gave him support and love when his father couldn’t provide it. I believe that she was a huge influence on him and was a big reason why he continued to dance. Eventually, Billy’s father begins to accept him for who he is and Billy receives unconditional positive regard from everyone.
growth, unconscious, implicit/explicit motivation, adaptive unconscious, conscious, ego development, competence, autonomy, psychological needs, self-actualization, openness, mindful, growth needs, 6 behaviors to encourage growth, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, autonomy/control causality orientations, internal locus of control, conditions of worth, unconditional/conditional positive regard
Through out the entire movie up until the very end Billy Elliot struggles with growth and reaching his full potential. His mother is gone and he is left with his macho father and brother and his elderly grandma. He is forced to abandon children s play to live like an adult due to the difficult times with strike going on. In his community and family hard blue collar work is valued over personal growth. In chapter 15 it talks about how what the society values over what the person's inner guide is can create a conflict as it is exemplified with Billy. The scene where Billy dances in front of his dad no longer shamefully hiding it shows the growth Billy experienced and Billy was no longer struggling to hide that part of him.
The scene where Billy decides to actually commit to dancing instead of doing boxing to meet the "society's" expectations and sought an increased level of openness and to develop personal strengths.
What made this movie so true for growth is that Billy did not truly succeed until he had his family's support because relationships support the actualization tendencies by providing warmth genuineness, interpersonal acceptance confirmation. The partial reason the father couldn't help Billy was that the finances were tough but it kind of contradicts Maslows hierarchy because even though they were short on money Billy eventually made his dream come true.Originally Billy thought dancing was for "faries" because that is what is socialized for boys, but eventually Billy began to display more autonmy and openness to the idea.
Billy seems like he was highly validation seeking individual he worried what his instructor thought and what his father thought, but that is how most children are but it could also be argued that he was growth oriented because he did defy his father and argued with the dance instructor and eventually prevailed at not caring what other people think.
The father seemed to displace his frustration and dreams onto Billy and even billy's brother. The father was on strike so it created a lot of tension and he seemed like the type of guy who didn't take it out on his boss but rather brought it home with him.
At the end of the movie it seems that everyone learned some valuable lessons such as the father learning that you can't force your dreams on your children ( sort of like those creepy women on tv with toddlers and tiaras) that it is best to support meaningful people even if you don't necessarily support what they are doing. It was also a big theme about there is more to life than just work that sometimes you have to know when to pick your battles , even if everyone else is choosing one battle don't just jump in.
Terms used: displacement, openness, hierarchy of needs, inner guide, growth needs, personal strengths, autonmy, esteem, validation, control
Billy Elliot is a movie about an 11 year old young boy, Billy, who has a passion for dancing. He is growing up in a time where boys dancing is very much frowned upon, especially by his dad and older brother. Billy’s mom passed away and so his only influence is his dad and brother. His dad tries to influence Billy to continue with his boxing lessons, but Billy is very passionate about dancing and must decide which route to take. The main person who pushes him to continue with dancing is his ballet teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson.
One of the things that really stuck out to me in the movie that related back to the book, was the fact that Billy reached self actualization by the end of the movie. Self actualization is the top of the pyramid in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Billy had probably already reached the levels of Psychological Needs and Safety/Security Needs because he had a family where he felt secure and all his needs (food, hunger, etc) were being met at that time. Once he received the love and belonging of his father and brother when they came to terms with Billy dancing and accepted it. Once the did that, Billy reached the level of Belonging/Love needs. The next level is Esteem Needs. Once Billy had the support of his father and brother, he was able to truly give everything he had to dancing. That lead Mrs. Wilkinson, his ballet teacher, to get him an audition at the Royal Ballet School, which lead to an even higher esteem boost. Then he had mastered this level. Self Actualization came next when Billy realized who is truly was and what truly made him happy. He was a dancer and once he realized that and had the support of his family, he reached the point of self actualization and was able to grow even more within himself.
Deficiency Needs are the bottom four needs on Maslow’s pyramid: physiological, safety/security, love/belonging, and esteem. Before Billy was able to reach and master these four levels, there were a lot of deficiencies in his life. Billy was deprived of the love and belonging feeling from his father and brother. This caused Billy to stop his growth at the safety/security level. He was also deprived of his esteem needs for awhile. He was forced to be involved in boxing by his dad, even though he wasn’t very good at it. This caused a lot of damage to Billy’s self esteem. . . until he became a dancer. Once he mastered dancing, and his father became accepting of it, he then mastered that level as well. He then reached self actualization, which is what all people strive for in their lives.
If you take a look at Billy’s brother in this movie, Tony, we can see a lot of conflict going on between his Id and Ego. I was most aware of this when he was struggling to choose whether to participate in a riot or not. His Id was telling him to join with the riot of the Union’s revolt. On the other hand, his ego was telling him to stay away from the riot and obey the laws that had been put in place. He went back and forth between these choices, but his id ended up winning the argument.
Another topic in these chapters that related back to the movie was Ego Effectance. This is defined as a person’s competence in dealing with the environmental challenges, demands, and opportunities. You can tell that Billy really seems to have this ego effectance. He seems to really accept some of the challenges and demands that his life has in store. He keeps pushing on with boxing for awhile because that is his fathers passion for him. That is one of the main challenges that Billy faces in this movie: continue with boxing for his father or dance for himself. Another part of this is opportunities. Billy has the opportunity to dance at a recital his teacher found for him. Billy really wants to take this opportunity because dancing is very important to him, and he has to choose. Billy goes through all this until his father becomes accepting of his passion for dance and then Billy reaches self actualization and fully embraces who he is.
Billy Elliot was an amazing movie to relate to motivation and emotion! Billy definitely struggles with inner conflict. He wants to be able to do what he loves and makes him happy, dancing but he wants to please his father by boxing. This whole scenario shows a lot about are recent chapters. First, it shows the concept of repression. Billy, at first, hides that he is not going to boxing lessons anymore. He feels as though if he just hides this and lets his father THINK he is going, it will all work out in the end. I think this also shows social acceptance and how it can affect us. His father does not want Billy dancing because that is not the norm for boys his age. He is worried what others will say about Billy and himself for that matter. Another important concept is the projection of feelings. Billy's father wants him to box because he did. He has expectations and Billy doesn't exact fit what he thought his son would. His first son followed in his footsteps and does his job but Billy is "different" and that seems to upset him.
I think that Billy's dance teacher also projects some feelings onto Billy. You can tell the class really isn't up to her liking. They just don't seem to do everything perfectly, especially her daughter Debbie. She is always yelling at her to do this and that better. Once she notices Billy's ability she focuses on him and seems happier because he work is paying off. In a sense, Billy is just talented and that is not true but we will let her think that. There is also an emotional connection you can see when Billy is dancing. He feels the music and shows his happiness, very beautiful.
We see Billy reach his goal in the end. He has the lead role in Swan Lake. We may not have seen his hard work or his goal settings but he reached his attained goal. When he was in dance class he was growth seeking. It came almost natural to him and he was seeking bigger and better things. Billy found an almost rewarding feeling from Mrs. Wilkinson's happiness. They both benefited greatly from each other. But Billy always had to have drive to get to his goals. The drive to do the best and get to the top was his motivation. His father did not support it at the beginning but he noticed how much it meant to him and did support him in the end.
ME terms: attained goal, inner conflict, projection, repressed feelings, drive, social acceptance, growth seeking.
Billy Elliot is about an eleven year old boy who loves music. You can see this passion that he has for music right at the beginning of the movie when he is boxing; he punches the punching bag to the beat of the music that the ballet students are using. He goes and joins in with the ballet girls and finds out that he actually really likes dancing too. He tries as hard as he can to keep it a secret because he knows that his father will not approve of him dancing ballet. Billy gets away with it for awhile, but eventually his father finds out that he hasn’t been going to boxing anymore and goes to the gym to investigate. He finds Billy dancing with all the girls and he is furious. He forbids Billy to go to ballet class and he doesn’t go for awhile, but starts going again. While all this is going on Billy’s father and brother are miners who are on strike and not working because of the union. This is putting a strain on the family, along with Billy having to take care of his grandmother when his father and brother are away at work or on strike every day. His father ends up letting him go back to dancing and Billy even auditions at a school in London designed for the arts. He ends up getting in and his family is ecstatic for him. At the end of the movie it shows Billy dancing as a professional dancer on stage of a large auditorium and his dad and brother are there to cheer him on because they are finally truly proud of him.
A very strong emotion that is present throughout a lot of the movie is happiness. Billy really enjoys dancing and it makes him very happy. Billy also seems like he is extroverted, which makes him more apt to be a happy person. Even thought Billy knew his father wouldn’t approve of what he was doing, he did it anyway because it made him happy. This is a characteristic of extroverts. I wouldn’t say that Billy’s father is neurotic, but he acts like it in the first half or so of the movie when he is totally against Billy dancing and even playing music in the house. He even goes to the extent of smashing the piano that belonged to his wife because he didn’t want Billy to have anything to do with music and dancing. He seemed like a somewhat unhappy person at first until he came to grips that it was okay for Billy to dance and do what he loved to do.
I think out of all the main characters Billy’s father expressed the most emotion. He kind of seemed like a hard, cold man at the beginning of the movie. Billy seemed to be scared of him whenever he was being yelled at. When he found out that Billy was dancing it seemed like he got really angry at the world. He did things, like smashing the piano, that he normally would not have done and this shows that he has a bad temper. When he starts accepting that Billy wants and likes to dance his attitude totally changed. He had the attitude that he would do whatever he could to get enough money for Billy to go and audition for this school of arts in London. He even went as far as making himself go back to work in the mines because he wanted to get the money for Billy. When his older son found out that his father was going to work in the mines again he chased him down and there was a really emotional moment. Billy’s brother chased down his father asking why he would give in to the union after all the work they had done and his father broke down crying. This shows what kind of person the man really is. He cared about his children enough to give up everything he had worked for in order to provide the money he needed for Billy to get into the school for the arts. I think that his father was so against the dancing at first because he wanted and felt like he needed control.
Billy ended up trying the dance class at first because he had a repressed feeling in his unconscious. He didn’t know why he did it at first until he found out that he actually really enjoyed dancing. Once he started dancing that repressed feeling came out of his unconscious and Billy was now conscious of it. This is why he kept dancing even though he knew he would get in trouble if his father found out what he was doing.
I do recommend this movie to others. It is a good movie about finding what you love to do and acting on that passion despite what others may think of it. It is an inspiring movie for everyone.
The movie “Billy Elliot” is a great example of many of the topics discussed in Chapters 14 and 15, along with topics from many other chapters we covered. Within the first quarter of the movie, we see the internal struggle Billy has about wanting to learn to dance and wanting to avoid problems at home by continue to participate in boxing training. This is a good example of psychodynamics in which the conscious will versus the unconscious counterwill. Billy feels like he should do boxing to please his father (will) but what he really wants to please himself is dancing (counterwill). This is illustrated very explicitly in the film during the scenes where Billy is supposed to be paying attention to boxing but keeps gazing over at the ballet studio and his internal struggle is visible to the viewer.
Throughout the film, Billy’s father seems very harsh and unsupportive of Billy’s dream of dancing ballet. He expects Billy to do boxing or wrestling or a “male” sport and dreams of anything else are very foreign to him having never reached self-actualization for himself. For Billy’s full self to emerge he needed positive regard. Instead he was in a situation where he had to internalize his conditions of worth. If he wanted his father’s positive regard then he must act the way his father wants him to behave (i.e., boxing). He knew he would not get his father’s positive regard if he did ballet, therefore he struggled with parental conditions of worth.
Billy also employed some defense mechanisms as discussed in Chapter 14. One good example of this is that after his audition at the ballet school, he sat down and there was another boy sitting in the room. He kept asking Billy about his audition and telling him it was no big deal if he didn’t get in, that he could try again next year. Billy took his own anxiety about letting himself and his father and friends down and about his worry about how well he did out on the boy by punching him. This is referred to as displacement which is where you take your anger out about one thing onto a substitute object.
Above all else, this movie is very good at visualizing what self-actualization looks like. If we use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and apply it to Billy’s journey throughout the movie, then we can see where Billy climbed four levels to reach self-actualization. He started out the film with his physiological needs being met sufficiently. He had food, water, shelter, clothing and his basic needs met. Safety and security came next and his home life was filled with insecurities. His father and brother were embroiled in a strike that often times resorted in violence and Billy did not feel safe sneaking around to do ballet. Love and belongingness were not met either because Billy did not receive much affection and he felt different from his father and brother and sort of felt alone within his family. He missed his mother and suffered with sadness and grief over her missing out on his life and being there to support him. His esteem needs were not met because he had little self-efficacy and felt like he was out of place. He didn’t have anyone giving him much positive regard. Little by little throughout the movie, these deficiency needs are met for Billy. He begins to feel love and belongingness from his family, he starts getting support for his dancing and his self-esteem begins to rise. Finally, at the end we see that he has become an extremely talented dancer at the ballet school where he has a lead part in Swan Lake. His family is there to watch him and you can tell that not only has Billy reached his potential and self-actualized but his father has taken this huge journey too and is living his dreams through his son.
ME terms used: will, counterwill, conscious, unconscious, psychodynamics, self-actualization, conditions of worth, positive regard, defense mechanisms, displacement, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
In the beginning, Billy Elliott was having a conflict between his conscious and unconscious motivation. He consciously wanted to box because it was the socially acceptable choice but he really wanted to dance. He got acceptance from the girls in the class and the ballet teacher so he felt able to accept his desire to dance and reject boxing. Throughout this movie, Billy is growing and self-actualizing. Billy takes up ballet even though many people including his father would not approve because it is something he really wants to do. Billy showed that he had an autonomy causality orientation because he allowed his needs and interests to regulate his behavior and rejected social cues. This provided Billy with a greater degree of motivation with ballet. He had intrinsic motivation to dance and extrinsic motivation (his father) to box which is why he pursued dancing. Because he was intrinsically motivated to dance, he showed persistence, drive, and positive outcomes with ballet. He also felt happy and satisfied while dancing. Thus, he was more successful at ballet than boxing.
Billy was definitely a growth-seeking individual rather than a validation-seeking individual. He sought to reach his personal potential and did not rely on others to provide him with a sense of worth. Instead of giving up and feeling unworthy when his teacher criticized him, he persisted and progressed.
Billy’s father did not support his actualizing tendency in the beginning and for most of the movie. He was pretty controlling and he pushed Billy toward a commitment to conditions of worth. He was not supportive of Billy’s dancing when he first found out. Billy’s father provided him with conditional positive regard. He provided love, acceptance, and support when Billy did what he wanted and acted how he wanted like partaking in boxing. This shows Billy that his experiences are not valuable unless approved by others. Luckily, Billy maintained his organismic valuation and avoided doing things based on other people’s perception of worth. Billy’s dad used conditional regard to try and create internal compulsions with Billy to carry on the family tradition of boxing. Because of this, Billy lied to his father and told him he was boxing when he was really dancing. This may have created a psychological incongruence for Billy at home. He had to be a different person at home than who he really felt he was. For a while, he adopted a façade at home but when his father caught him dancing, he started to show his true self and feelings.
I think Billy’s dad had a hard time accepting his dancing because he was raised with conditional positive regard and was taught to be validation-seeking. He was taught that social approval is what is important. I think a big part of why Billy’s father was so angry is because he was trying to suppress his wife’s death and it was frustrating because suppression doesn’t work. He tried to distract himself from thinking about her but ended up very frustrated, angry and crying a lot because he tried to suppress his thoughts and feelings. His frustration is one reason he was easily upset. I also think he used displacement. He was angry that he lost his wife so he let that anger out in other ways as an ego defense mechanism. As the movie progressed and he still had issues with his wife’s death but he was able to accept and support Billy’s dancing once he saw how much it meant to him. Because of changing his conditional regard for Billy to unconditional positive regard, he allowed Billy to live by self-definition and grow to self-actualize. He began to support Billy and create a greater relatedness with him which helped Billy be autonomous and allowed him to do what he was intrinsically motivated to do. In the end, we see that Billy has grown and gained self-actualization because he was successful at what he wanted to do and let his true self emerge.
This was my first time watching Billy Elliot and I really enjoyed it! The movie had alot of concepts from chapters 14 and 15. Billy Elliot can be evaluated by both theoretical bases: psychodynamic and positive psychology/humanisitic psychology.
The story fits perfectly with the psychodynamic approach. Billy Elliot is a movie about a young boy facing conflicts. At the beginning of the movie Billy is the one facing conflicts but afterwards Billy's father end up facing conflicts as well.
The most obvious conflict he experiences is between dance and his gender. The movie is also perfect when considering humanistic psychology. Billy is experiencing the two messages that every individual has on how to act and behave socially; these are from biological temperament and the other from cultural priorities. Billy enjoys dancing but cultural priorities in England at this time believe this creates gender role conflicts. It is not socially acceptable for men to dance. If I considered the movie from a psychodynamic approach Billy’s ego tells him to engage in normal gender appropriate activities but there is conflict with his id because he feels pleasure from dancing. This is an example of the pleasure principle. Billy might have the will or idea that he shouldn’t dance but it is in conflict with his counterwill or counterideas. This is exactly what they refer to as psychodynamics: “clashing of forces”.
A perfect example of Billy’s id, ego, and use of ego defense is in the dressing room with his dance teacher. Billy wants to give up; he does not want to try anymore. The dance teacher won’t let him give up. This makes him angry and Billy uses ego defense, specifically projection, yelling at her that she is a failure. “Don’t pick on me because you effed up on your own life.” He is also trying to rationalize why she was yelling at him.
If Freud considered the Billy's father he would probably believe that the father expressed thanatos. From the Dual instinct theory Freud might believe the father's aggression had manifested to prejudice. He was prejudiced against male dancers, especially his son dancing.
Billy portrays some of the ideas behind object relations theory. Billy spends his time with the other boy in ballet. Billy satisfies his need for relatedness by relating to this other young boy. For the most part Billy does not speak about ballet with anyone besides ballet students and the ballet teacher.
Billy’s choice to continue dancing displays the fact that he is listening to his inner guide over social expectation or cultural priorities.
A humanistic approach would believe that Billy is dancing because it could be his striving toward fulfillment. Billy is going through the realization called self-actualization. Billy is beginning to realize some his talents and potentialities.
I really enjoyed the movie. It was a feel good movie. I loved the storyline of Billy and his father. At the end of the movie they lead you to think Billy has finally became a famous dancer. This also speaks alot about his genuine and persevering motivation to be a dancer.
trivial question, what have in common mary anne evans and Lucile Dupin with billy elliot?
The answer is that the three did something that people thought it was inappropriate for them to do, the first two were two nineteenth-century writers had to change its name to George Eliot and George Sand to publish their books, because society nineteenth century saw not right for women to publish their books.
More than a century later, in the XXI century England prejudices still prevent people from being totally free.
When you're a child the pressure of your friends and your parents greatly affects you when your parents get upset with you or insult your children will suffer a lot, so it is very strange that a boy of 11 years to do something that others not approve.
Why dance billy elliot motivates both to prefer being disowned by their parents and friends before they stop?
What reason is there to do something you do not get any tangible reward, which is grounds for something that you will not win anything (except your personal satisfaction) and instead you are getting the criticism from everyone else?
I think of all motivation theories and explanations we've seen over this years the most adequate to explain the behavior of billy elliot is intrinsic motivation, described as the propensity to engage ones Inherent Interest and Capacities to Exercise ones and, in doing so, to seek out and master optimal Challenges (Deci and Ryan, 1986).
Today many children are subjected to great pressure by their parents to say, "You have to get all A, you have to play basketball, you have to learn to play the piano and when you finished with all this you'll have to learn Spanish ".
But what really is this good for children? When I was a kid I was at a tennis academy which prepares people to be professional. I remember it was very hard, we got up at 7 am, had breakfast and we trained 8 to 10, 10 and 13 were going to class, from 13 to 14 we ate, rested 14 to 15 and 15 to 19 are in training again and at night from 21 to 23 back to study. When you have ten or twelve years and you have to put that training so hard you think, "I enjoy doing it?, How long will I have to get it?" I loved to play tennis, but I did not like being told what I had to do all the time, so I did not like discipline, I did not like training five hours a day ...... I was 12 years.
Because I say this and how it relates to Billy, My theory is that bigger, poe, mozart, woody allen, michael jordan ..... ! or billy elliot! enjoy doing doing what they do without expecting any reward, for the simple pleasure of writing, dance or play basketball, I liked to play tennis but when you have to train five hours a day you start to hate him, you do not think we happened to michael jordan, I could get up at night and go to practice at the pavilion. Another example, the Williams sisters, two of the best tennis players in history, these girls were trained militarily by his father since he was five years in one of the worst neighborhoods in LA, the two played and won many tournaments, but once won much money they decided to retire, though still the best, my opinion is that their intrinsic motivation was less than its extrinsic motivation. I think when a child is encouraged with a reward for doing something his interest wanes after receiving the award.
My opinion is that high intrinsic motivation is synonymous with success in life, I think one of the most important things is to feel pleasure when you do something, and billy elliot felt an incredible passion for ballet, an intrinsic motivation that even the prejudices of their society couldnt stop.
I think that it is very interesting to review and dissect movies with the perspective of a psychologist. Viewing the movie Billy Elliot and making connections with chapters 14 and 15 is quite intriguing. The first thing that popped into my mind was the idea of the unconscious and how it affected Billy throughout the movie. I think that his natural gravitation towards ballet could be seen as something of an unconscious behavior. When people ask him why he started to dance he can never really think of an answer except that he just felt like he should do it. This could lead into a long debate of Freudian unconscious but since his work is largely ignored now I won’t spend too much time on it. I would think that Freud would be very intrigued by Billy’s penchant for ballet dancing in a coal mining town where no other boys do ballet and the fact that his mother is gone. If you were to look at Billy’s attraction to ballet it may be understood better from the adaptive unconscious viewpoint. The adaptive unconscious has the ability to appraise the environment, set goals, make judgments, and initiate action, all while we are consciously thinking about something else. This model fits perfectly with the scene where Billy is trying to box but unconsciously starts to dance to the music he hears.
The concept of suppression is not directly noticeable in the movie but it could be assumed that several of the characters have tried to suppress thoughts throughout the movie. Thoughts of Billy’s mom, in particular, were probably attempted to be suppressed by both Billy and his father. Billy, his father and his brother may have all tried to suppress thoughts about ballet dancing in general, after it was known that he was dancing.
Billy probably had a few ego defense mechanisms that helped him get through the tough criticism that he received from doing ballet. One mechanism that we see him use is projection, attributing one’s own unacceptable desire or impulse onto someone else. When he gets mad during practice he runs to the bathroom and then yells at Mrs. Wilkinson for making him be a dancer when she didn’t amount to anything. This is a defense mechanism that is used a lot. Billy may have also fantasized like many children do to avoid the negative effects of others around him. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that both Billy’s father and brother, Tony, had some stage of denial after finding out that he was dancing ballet. The fight between Tony and his father, Jackie, may have been a form of displacement for the father. Jackie is really mad at the coal company for not offering the workers enough money and so they are all on strike. This pent up aggression towards the owners and deal makers is being displaced onto Tony. This anger, about the strike, is the same for Tony and he takes it out on Billy by yelling at him and the riot police by fighting with them, which leads to his arrest.
The goal of reaching self-actualization, the process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals, and a dependence on others is the ultimate goal from Billy throughout this movie. We can look at the process of reaching self-actualization through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Before Billy can achieve his growth needs, self-actualization, he must first meet his survival or deficiency needs. He has his physiological needs well met, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to do sports. He seems to be pretty well off no his safety and security needs as well, even though there is a lot of unrest he never seems to be in danger. The need for love and belongingness appears to be achieved by the end of the film. He has always had his best friend Michael and Debbie, to some extent, for this need. But, it isn’t until he gets into the ballet school that we really see the love between Billy, his father and his brother. It’s at this same point that his esteem needs are being met, with the approval of his super macho father and brother accepting his goals to be a dancer. With all of these needs being met Billy is free to achieve his self-actualization at the ballet school in London where he will be on his own.
ME Terms: esteem needs, love and belongingness, safety and security needs, physiological needs, survival or deficiency needs, growth needs, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, displacement, denial, fantasized, projection, ego defense mechanisms, suppression, adaptive unconscious, Freud, unconscious
The movie Billy Elliot strongly related to growth motivation and positive psychology from Chapter 15. According to our text book, humanistic psychology argues that “rejecting one’s nature in favor of social priorities puts personal growth and psychological well-being at risk.” The main character, Billy struggled with choosing between something so “sissy” as dancing or “manly” boxing that he didn’t like and wasn’t near as good at. He had to choose between what he enjoyed and what society including his macho dad and brother would want him to do. Humanistic psychology is all about discovering human potential by striving toward growth and self-realization and away from façade, self-concealment, and the pleasing and fulfilling of the expectations of others. You can tell that Billy gets tired of holding up the façade and lies of going to boxing and is almost relieved when everything is out and in the open when his father learns he has been taking ballet lessons instead. When Billy decided to try out for a prestigious ballet school he could have been self-actualizing, although I’m not certain all of his deficiency needs were met on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At the very least Billy demonstrated an actualizing tendency. There was something within him that made him want to stretch his boundaries and strive for more. He would have experienced a great deal of autonomy when he moved to a big city away from his parents. He would have to depend on and regulate himself away from his family. It also would take a great deal of openness in order to overcome his past experiences and fears. You can see Billy grow from feeling timid and defensive, even punching a future class mate, to hopeful of the new experiences and talent he could gain at the school. Our text book also examines how relationships support the actualizing tendency. Early in the movie, I was concerned about Billy’s relationship with his father. Billy’s father seemed to display conditional regard, which is offering love for obedience paired with withdrawal of love for disobedience. Billy’s father reacted very harshly to Billy’s interest in dance and Billy’s awkward relationship with his feminine male friend Michael. As the movie progresses, Billy’s father and brother drastically change. They see how talented and passionate Billy is about dancing and that it is a huge outlet for him. Then they begin to support him in every way possible: scrounging up money, doing a 180 on their values and crossing picket lines to earn money, acting proud of him, getting friends and neighbors involved and showing up for his big show. Billy also had a quality relationship with his friend Michael. The relationship contained all five characteristics that reflect the quality of an interpersonal relationship: warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation of the other person’s capacity for self-determination. Another relationship between the movie Billy Elliot and our book was how motivation can arise from a source that lies outside of conscious awareness and volitional intent from Chapter 14. The term implicit motivation refers to these motivations that occur out of a person’s conscious awareness and are indirect, implied, or not well understood. Billy couldn’t describe during his interview why he liked to dance. He just knew that he did. I doubt Billy even knows why he was drawn into that first small town ballet class full of girls. Music was intrinsically motivating for him. He just plain enjoyed music and dancing and was naturally good at it. Billy had many words to describe how dancing made him feel. Dancing was such a positive experience for him that it created almost an out of body experience. He compared it to flight or electricity. I believe Billy became a fully functioning individual because of his choice of exploring his authentic self over succumbing to societal standards.
Billy Elliot
When the movie first started, I found it difficult to understand their accent. I had to listen intently and pay closer attention than I normally would have to—just something I found interesting because they were still speaking in English. Billy Elliot is a rather fascinating story. His mother has passed away and he is living in a tiny place with his dad, grandmother, and older brother. He is trying to live up to his dad’s expectations and practice boxing but he is terrible at it and dislikes the activity entirely. From chapter thirteen, I noticed the individual differences in emotional and motivational states between people in the same situation within all three of the men dealing with the death of their mother/wife. Billy’s dad is also on strike with the Miner’s Union so he is having a very difficult time coping with the stress. He seems to be in denial, convincing himself that smashing the piano is not a big deal because “she’s dead”, and that’s it.
The actualizing tendency is an innate continual presence that guides Billy toward his genetically determined potential. He becomes motivated to undertake a new and challenging experience. Billy is a sensation seeking person, so he starts to take ballet lessons with Miss and when his dad finds out he takes his sadness, stress, and anger out on him, known as displacement because Billy is younger and weaker. During a stressful ballet lesson, Billy screams at his teacher that he can’t do it and runs away. He was engaging in behavior to decrease his arousal by running away. The overarousal was causing him emotional disruption by producing anger, irritability, and anxiety. You see Billy put his growth needs above his needs for survival has he continues to practice ballet. Throughout the movie you notice Billy’s perceived control grow. In the beginning he feels he has no control as his dad and brother make fun of ballet, set him on the table and yell at him to dance, and suppress his innate desire. Eventually Billy keeps going to lessons, and finally his dad catches him dancing with his friend and Billy keeps dancing. Here you notice Billy’s desire for control over come him as he does what he wants despite his dad’s disapproval. When his dad realizes Billy is a great dancer he tries to go back to work. His superego—the, “what you ought to do”, has come into play here as he needs money to send Billy to the school of his dreams. The friend that Billy was dancing with turns out to be a homosexual young man who is Billy’s good friend through thick and thin. One day Billy goes over to his house and finds him dressed up in his sister’s dress and putting on make-up. It is then that we discover that his dad does so also when no one is around, so Billy’s friend was primed to do the same. The subliminal presentation of his father dressed in women’s clothing could have been an unconscious priming for him to try it. It also could have helped him to understand and accept his sexual orientation. You see Billy put his growth needs above his needs for survival has he continues to practice ballet. After Billy auditions, he waits for a very long time to finally find out he got in! During this time he goes through the organismic valuation process as his innate capability for judging whether the experience of going off to London will either promote or reverse personal growth. Thankfully he decides to go and the movie ends with a fantastic scene of him as the Swan Prince!
This movie is a great example of positive psychology through an example of the struggles that goes through in order to reach self-actualization. Billy Elliot is at boxing practice when he first discovers his interest in ballet. Billy attempts to suppress his desire to dance because his dad, a boxer himself, would not stand for it. Billy somewhat understands that his Dad’s identity would be threatened. Billy’s own identity would be threatened. Billy’s role in society is as a boy. Only girls and “poofs” dance. Just as the book discussed the more Billy tried to suppress his desire to dance the more he thought about it.
Billy is driven to ballet by the implicit need for achievement. Ballet is where his passion is. Billy describes dancing with feeling like electricity. He wants to learn ballet because he loves to dance. This is intrinsic motivation at work. Billy’s organismic valuation process recognizes ballet is a potential growth experience. Billy’s need for relatedness battles with his need for self-actualization. Due to the fact that Billy has been of course exposed to conditions of worth, Billy knows that male ballet dancers are not socially accepted. Billy’s need for positive regard is high especially from his father and he knows that his father would be extremely upset. Although dancing could have a negative impact on fulfilling his need for relatedness Billy is willing to make the sacrifice in order to fulfill his needs for self-actualization and need for autonomy. Billy’s need for autonomy is most likely much more intense than his need for relatedness since he does not have many positive intimate relationships.
Billy begins dancing in secrecy. This is difficult because Billy probably felt some anxiety about someone finding out and even admitting that he liked ballet dancing. Billy is able to face major insecurities to fulfill his need for self-actualization. He is forced to deal with these insecurities because there is incongruence present. Billy is unhappy with the façade that he likes boxing and that someday he will fulfill his father’s boxing gloves. I think Billy was beginning to feel the consequences from this congruence before he began dancing. When he dances Billy experiences a eudaimonic type of happiness. Billy appears to have autonomy causality orientation because he focused more on his needs, interest, and personally valued goals than the social expectations. Just as the book described Billy who is autonomy causality oriented is motivated intrinsically to dance. Even when his dad finds out that Billy has been dancing, Billy does not allow this to effect his personal worth, therefore demonstrating that he is a growth-seeking individual.
Billy goes through a six step process concerning his progress in ballet: motivation, incongruence engagement, development, learning, performance, and psychological well-being. What is really interesting about Billy is that he is able to reach self-actualization. One major characteristic of Billy that made is possible is his string need for autonomy. The other fundamental direction that Billy possessed was openness. He was open to the idea of dancing and this is how he was able to find true happiness. He did not ignore the fact that dancing was his passion even though he knew there would negative consequences.
Although learning ballet was difficult to learn Billy’s intrinsic motivation pushed him to continue. It is important to look at the positive relationship that Billy did have. Billy’s best friend, Michael, fully supported Billy in dancing. Michael did not have commitment to conditions of worth therefore did not judge Billy in a negative way. He simply supported what Billy wanted to do. Their relationship was genuine and they shared warmth, empathy, and interpersonal acceptance. Also the ballet instructor provided a strong positive relationship that fully supported his dancing. Without these relationships Billy might not have found his passion.
Our final movie blog post is over Billy Elliot, and I really liked it! This movie about a boy who goes from boxing to ballet and in the process, finds himself. Of course, he meets adversity along the way from his widowed father and older tough brother. With the help of his dance teacher, he figures out what he truly wants out of life.
Right from the start, you can tell that Billy has a unconscious desire to dance. He plays his brother's records and plays the piano. Even when he is boxing, when he hears the music he can't help but move to the beat. This unconscious desire moves to his conscious when he joins in with the dance class. Holism when occurs when mind and body come together with this desire and become whole. This desire begins with the id, which is the "I want it right now" complex. He wanted to dance at that moment.
As we observe through the movie, Billy goes through ego development and becomes more mature; he finds himself. This emergence of self occurs through deciding to sneak around and take ballet lessons from Miss instead of going to boxing. He was gaining congruence with acceptance of the self. Billy works towards self-actualization: fulfilling his fullest potential. He works on becoming autonomous by releasing the hold his father and brother had on every decision that pertained to him. Billy is growth-seeking; growth-seeking centers personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Billy decided that taking ballet would be a growth experience; this means he took part in the organismic valuation process.
There are six ways to encourage growth, and Billy did all six throughout the movie on his journey to self-actualization. He made growth choices like joining the dance class and sneak by his father. He was honest with himself and his love for dance despite the social stigma that went along with it at the time. He situationally positioned himself for peak experiences by not giving up and continuing ballet, which led to his audition with the Royal Ballet School. He gave up defensiveness by not letting the stigma get to him and continuing against his father's wishes. He let his self emerge by expressing his emotions through dance. Finally, he was open to experience and this was shown by Billy taking the audition. Through this growth, Billy was able to move from control casuality orientation where he relied on external guides to autonomy casuality orientation where he relied on his inner guide. At the end of this journey, Billy was able to become a fully functioning individual and gain eudaimonic well-being. Also, his family was able to transport their love from a conditional positive regard of negative internal compulsions to unconditional positive regard concerning ballet.
Billy's anger with his dad moves from his preconscious to his conscious when they are discussing ballet at the table and his dad gets under his skin.
The Hierarchy of Human Needs was also prevalent throughout the movie. The physiological need for food was there because they were tight on money so had to conserve. Security in their job was an important part in the movie for his dad and brother. Love and belongingness had a big impact between Billy and his family. The need for esteem was prominent in Billy because without a high self-esteem, he would've caved at the first mention of the social stigma of ballet for men. These four needs are known as deficiency needs because the absence of them inhibits growth and development.
Billy's dad and brother played huge roles in the movie. They both used the defense mechanism of displacement to take out their anger about the miners and the strike verbally on the family especially Billy. They both were validation-seeking when it came to the strike. They didn't really want to do it, at least his dad, and were doing it only because the whole union was. Billy's dad and brother both had conditions of worth about Billy's desire for ballet. They were quick to reject the idea even though their mother would have let him do it.
Finally, a small role played was Michael, Billy's in-the-closet-gay friend. Michael has implicit motivation: all those motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments that operate outside a person's conscious awareness and that are fundamentally distinct from those of self-report. This refers to him dressing up in girls' clothing, wearing make-up, putting Michael's hands in his jacket, etc. Michael also used the defense mechanism of rationalization in the scene when Billy visits Michael at his house and he is dressed in his sister's dress. He says that his dad does it when he thinks no one else is home.
In the end, Billy is able to live by self-definition and live to his full potential.
ME Terms: Ego development, conscious, preconsious, unconscious, implicit motivation, id, ego, defense mechanisms, displacement, rationalization, holism, self-actualization, autonomy, Hierarchy of Human Needs, physiological/security/love and belongingness/esteem needs, deficiency needs, encouraging growth (6 ways), organismic valuation process, emergence of self, conditions of worth, unconditional/conditional positive regard, internal compulsions, congruence, fully functioning individual, autonomy/control casuality orientations, growth-/validation-seeking, eudaimonic well-being
On idea relateable to Billy Elliot is Freud's idea of id and ego. Billy was born with id and it tries to get whatever it wants. In this case it would be to dance. Then as he got older his ego developed to keep him from defining norms. He was a boxer to partially satisfy his need for wanting to dance. In the beginning we see him dancing with a punching bag at the end of his boxing class, but that is not the same as dancing. Billy sees the dance class next to him and decides to join. He is hesitant to go back the next day because he knows it is not normal for a boy to be in dance and his ego is telling him not to. Well, he goes back again and again due to the need of id but ego is making sure he hides it form everyone. Soon Billy's father catches him and ruins everything. He knows his father is not accepting of ballet, nor is his brother, but it is what Billy loves so he satisfies id and keeps dancing. Finally Billy's dad catches him in the building where they practice wrestling and Billy has had enough. Id just jumps out and completely fulfills his desire to dance, right in front of his dad. After this they become accepting of Billy going to ballet so id can be happy dancing and ego is not worried about trying to be in the norms anymore because Billy dancing is acceptable now.
This movie shows also shows how Billy began satisfying his needs. In the beginning of the movie Billy, for the time being, had his physiological needs of food and shelter. Although, there was a possibility food would run out since his dad and brother were on strike. He had safety needs like a house, but then we get to the need of love and belongingness and he is lacking. His mother had died, and his father and brother didn't accept him because he was in dance. He had exception from his grandmother and friend across the street but really wanted to be accepted by his brother and father. Billy esteem need was not fully met because he was a dancer and that was not normal at all and the rest of the men in his town looked down upon him for dancing. and since he did not have all his deficiency needs met Billy was in a state of deprivation and couldn't satisfy his growth need of self actualization. In the middle-end of the movie Billy's father gets his job back so money is not a problem and his physiological need is met, he has a home to keep him safe and family to protect him so his safety and security need is met. It really shows how accepting his father has become when they are at his mothers grave and then they end up falling over, laughing, and laying on the ground together. The acceptance of his father as well as his brother and the rest of the town satisfy his need for loving and belongingness need, and since the town is supportive of Billy's decision to dance he has his esteem. At the end of the movie when Billy gets accepted into dance school, they show him several years performing for a crowd of people with his brother, father, and friend there to watch. That is the point when it really displays ho Billy has satisfied his growth need and has self actualized.
Billy had a strong implicit motivation when it came to dancing. He didn't really know why he wanted to dance because none of the other boys did but he knew he wanted to do it. I think his implicit motivation for dance is showed in the beginning of the movie when he plays his brother record and is jumping up and down dancing and also when he is playing the piano at his house. He gets and internal feeling that he desires and dancing is the only way he achieves that feeling.
Billy's unconscious was very evident in throughout the movie. He love to dance and would dance when ever and where ever he could. Billy didn't know why he loved to dance he just knew he did. At the end of the movie Billy was asked what it felt like to dance and since his dancing motivation was unconscious his initial response was "I dont know." After Billy had throguh about what it felt like to dance for a while I think he finally brought into consciousness why he like to dance so much and how it really made him feel. It also help his father understand why Billy went through everything just to do something as silly as ballet.
Terms: Unconscious, implicit motivation, id and ego, Hierarchy of needs, physiological needs, safety and social needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, self actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs,
Billy is a great example of the holism theory. He loves dancing and strives to become better at it despite the opposition from his family. Holism looks at the whole person and the humanistic perspective stresses the importance of personal growth and self realization, and not relying on the views and expectations of others. Billy’s father and brother want him to be a boxer or wrestle but instead he focuses on what he loves and sticks with it. When he was accepted to go to dance school he was fulfilling his self-actualization and autonomy by lessening his dependence on his family and friends. He went away to school in another town where he didn’t know anybody and had no one to really rely on. He showed great openness when he stuck with dancing even though he father told him numerous times he can no longer dance. He chose to follow his own dreams and it took courage to continue it. When Billy was younger he relied on his family for food, shelter, and love. Just as Maslow’s hierarchy states, as we get older those needs progress to higher levels in the hierarchy such as esteem and self-actualization needs. He no longer needed to rely on his family to fulfill his basic needs.
Billy’s curiosity for dance started one day after boxing practice when he was watching the girls dance class. Inherently he knew that is what he wanted to do. Billy fulfilled his actualizing tendency by wanting to belong to that social group increase his learning.
Billy’s father and brother were struggling through the coal mine strike and his father more importantly felt a loss in drive with what to do with himself to support his family as well as losing his sense of self worth. When he realized how much Billy loved to dance and that he even had a chance to go out of town for school, his father set a goal to pay for it himself. He even sold his deceased wife’s jewelry to help pay for it. Before reducing himself to sell the jewelry he chose to deny his beliefs, incongruence, and start back at his job. While Billy was a growth seeking individual by pursuing his dreams to better himself with positive outcomes by dancing, his father on the other hand is a validation seeking individual. He measures his self worth by getting approval by others, especially those on the strike with him and his son.
Billy’s self-definition was tested when he chose to take up dance classes instead of boxing. Being male in that time period as well as living with two dominant males he still never once questioned his motives. His father and brother constantly criticized him for dancing saying it was for girls. They had a certain image of how each gender role was supposed to act as well as interests each sex should have. They tried to make goals for Billy according to his gender but didn’t take into account what it was he truly wanted to do.
Billy is a great example of the holism theory. He loves dancing and strives to become better at it despite the opposition from his family. Holism looks at the whole person and the humanistic perspective stresses the importance of personal growth and self realization, and not relying on the views and expectations of others. Billy’s father and brother want him to be a boxer or wrestle but instead he focuses on what he loves and sticks with it. When he was accepted to go to dance school he was fulfilling his self-actualization and autonomy by lessening his dependence on his family and friends. He went away to school in another town where he didn’t know anybody and had no one to really rely on. He showed great openness when he stuck with dancing even though he father told him numerous times he can no longer dance. He chose to follow his own dreams and it took courage to continue it. When Billy was younger he relied on his family for food, shelter, and love. Just as Maslow’s hierarchy states, as we get older those needs progress to higher levels in the hierarchy such as esteem and self-actualization needs. He no longer needed to rely on his family to fulfill his basic needs.
Billy’s curiosity for dance started one day after boxing practice when he was watching the girls dance class. Inherently he knew that is what he wanted to do. Billy fulfilled his actualizing tendency by wanting to belong to that social group increase his learning.
Billy’s father and brother were struggling through the coal mine strike and his father more importantly felt a loss in drive with what to do with himself to support his family as well as losing his sense of self worth. When he realized how much Billy loved to dance and that he even had a chance to go out of town for school, his father set a goal to pay for it himself. He even sold his deceased wife’s jewelry to help pay for it. Before reducing himself to sell the jewelry he chose to deny his beliefs, incongruence, and start back at his job. While Billy was a growth seeking individual by pursuing his dreams to better himself with positive outcomes by dancing, his father on the other hand is a validation seeking individual. He measures his self worth by getting approval by others, especially those on the strike with him and his son.
Billy’s self-definition was tested when he chose to take up dance classes instead of boxing. Being male in that time period as well as living with two dominant males he still never once questioned his motives. His father and brother constantly criticized him for dancing saying it was for girls. They had a certain image of how each gender role was supposed to act as well as interests each sex should have. They tried to make goals for Billy according to his gender but didn’t take into account what it was he truly wanted to do.
Please read the following link:http://www.psychologicalscience.com/kim_maclin/2010/01/i-learned-it-at-the-movies.html as well as the 3 resource links at the bottom of that article.This semester's movies:Teen DreamsCast…
I would like to use my attendance points from 4/5 to go towards this blog
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For our final movie review we were to watch “Billy Elliot” a movie about a boy who went from boxing training to ballet dancing. His widowed father and older brother disapprove of this transfer, but soon take an understanding and appreciation to it.
From the start of the movie you get the understanding that Billy has a passion for music. This passion for music turns into curiosity for dancing, and ballet in particular. When he first begins to skip boxing training for ballet lessons he shows signs of resistance. He shows signs of validation-seeking because he is sneaking around and hiding the fact that he likes ballet and no longer want s to box. He does all sorts of thing to hide this fact from his father and the other kids. This later turns into desire, and growth-seeking because he strives to better himself as a dancer so badly. Billy goes to the library to read about better ballet techniques, crisper moves, and what makes ballet so great. Billy is so motivated that he actively pursues the ballet instructor when his father catching him and prohibits him from continuing ballet. This shows that Billy has the desire and drive to reach self-actualization when it comes to ballet dancing.
Billy’s brother and father are in a struggle themselves over conditions of worth. Since in the movie the miners are on strike, Billy’s brother and father must make the choice to join the union strike, or cross the picket line. Conditions of worth are judged on the behavior and personal characteristics (the self) as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. This eventually leads Billy’s brother and father to join the strike because they have the need for positive regard that sensitizes the individual to attend to the acceptance of others. In this case joining the strike symbolizes unity and support for their fellow miners, and eventually conforming to what everyone else is doing and being accepted as the majority.
During one of the most climatic scenes when the ballet instructor confronts Billy and his family because Billy missed his most important ballet audition for the Royal Ballet School, you see struggle Billy faces to be accepted by both his family and the ballet instructor. Billy obviously has a stronger connection and desire for acceptance from his brother and father, thus leading him to not dancing. This scene is very intense and ultimately causes Billy to “lose control” or gain control of his dancing (depends how you view it) as he begins dancing everywhere and seemingly with regard for his health. As the movie fast-forwards to Christmas, Billy’s motivation for dance leads him to sneak into the boxing gym to teach his friend simple ballet moves. Billy’s passion for ballet jumps off the screen in this scene and eventually leads to yet another major confrontation with his father over Billy’s passion for dance. Billy internalizes his emotions for dance throughout the entire movie until this point where he lets lose in front of his father and seemingly moves beyond feeling and need for acceptance by everyone else and what they think of him, and begins to do what makes him happy. This if the beginning of where we see Billy’s ‘emergence of the self.” Billy knew all along what and who he was, but finally he is no longer afraid of showing it to the world. Billy has finally reached the point of self-actualization in the movie.
In conclusion, this movie was by far one of the least interesting in my mind but it did have multiple relevant connections to our book. Billy seemed to evolve throughout the movie from a boy that needed validation from his family and his peers; to a boy that knew what he wanted and went for it, even though most people didn’t understand it. This showed a great deal of maturity and a high degree of self-actualization for Billy.
Terms: Validation-Seeking, Desire, Growth-Seeking, Motivation, Drive, Self-Actualization, Conditions of Worth, Need, Emergence of Self.
April 5th Freebie.
April 5th Freebie for me! Thanks!
The story of Billy Elliot’s development was inspirational. Against poverty, social rejection, and grief of his lost mother, Billy was able to communicate his spirit and emotion through dance. Children often find it difficult to communicate their anxiety, stress, and sadness in literal ways. With great inner strength, Billy endured the hardships forced on him by the outside world so that he could persist with his goal to become a ballet dancer. Integrated with Billy’s story are motivational characteristics such as psychological wishes, subliminal motivators, defense mechanisms, self-actualization, and autonomy. These characteristics clearly identify Billy’s thoughts, behaviors, and goals. Billy’s accomplishments are heartening, therefore the causes behind his actions can be used as tools to accomplish all goals for everyone.
Before any actions are taken, psychological wishes are present. Psychological wishes are ideal states we see ourselves being able to achieve; and when our current state does not match that then we are influenced to engage in some activity, thought, or feeling that brings us to that ideal state. When Billy was in boxing class, his current state was that he had to go to boxing and attempt to improve in that arena. However, his ideal state was to practice ballet. Across the room everyday he would see the girls dancing and would look over with wonder and excitement. One day Billy decided to change his situation by joining the girls in their ballet practice, his adaptive unconscious decided the environment free of his friends, coach, and dad was safe enough to engage in this change. In addition, the adaptive unconscious set a goal to participate in the practice, view ballet as an acceptable extracurricular activity, and finally join the group. In the movie it was clean that Billy was a bit uncertain about his move, however he did it anyway. While dancing (in several emotion filled scene’s throughout the movie), Billy communicated his sadness for his mother dying, excitement for new friendships, and stress from living in an uncommunicative family. Billy was implicitly motivated to dance and express himself. Implicit motivation consists of emotions, thoughts, and opinions, however they are in our unconscious. Therefore, implicit motivation encourages these actions without us concretely agreeing.
However, when Billy did realize his passion for ballet and dance, he participated in direct action to suppress it at first. When prompted by the ballet teacher, Billy could not decide if he would come back each week or not; however since he did not give the shoes back, he silently agreed. This idea of pushing away a thought and desire represents suppression. Much like Billy found out, suppression is only temporary and sooner or later the truth comes out. In addition, Billy was subliminally motivated in a way. This means he experienced a mild stimulation to be a dancer, or whoever he wanted to be. After the ballet teacher and Billy read aloud together Billy’s mothers letter, it was clear that the mother had given Billy her grace to always be himself. Once Billy accepted who his was and what he wanted to do, he was able to grow toward becoming a better ballet dancer. In essence, Billy was experiencing ego development; movement towards what he was capable of achieving. The ballet teacher saw great strength and improvement in Billy and he was able to benefit from her support. Relatedness is required to achieve positive ego development and self-actualization. When Billy felt that emotional connection, deep care and concern she had for him, and felt important to her, he was able to respond to those positive feelings in a strong way. He became a great ballet dancer because he knew he could do it and because someone else did too.
Looking from a holistic and positive psychology perspective, when one thing happens, it affects the whole person (mind and body). When Billy’s mom died, it affected Billy as a person, as well as the family as a whole. Without doing something like talking or engaging positively with one another, the family and each member’s development was stunted. However, when Billy began dancing and engaging in something he was passionate about, the entire family had to go along with him because when one member does something it affects the whole. When the father is in the gym and sees Billy dancing with his friend and on his own, he sees Billy’s strength and potential to live. He tells the brother “we have to give him a chance!” Once the family is somewhat supportive of Billy’s goal, they begin building up his strength and engaging in ways that communicate Billy’s competencies and capabilities.
In addition to having social support (even if it wasn’t at first from his father and brother), having personal inner strength to adhere to what is best for the self is just as difficult discover. By attending ballet class week after week and then by working individually with the ballet teacher, Billy was leaving fear behind and trading it in for courage to achieve what he truly was capable of. If Billy had always chosen to not anger his father, he would have become an extremely angry, anxious, and sad individual (much like his brother). Instead, Billy worked towards self-actualization, to be an autonomous person, and to be open to experiences like practicing/dancing ballet and trying out for ballet school. Billy showed that he had the strength to be strong on his own and once he moved past that and a had the strength of the support of family, he was able to truly do his best.
Growth towards self-actualization sounds great, because through it Billy was able to achieve his goal. However, this movement creates great tension, anxiety, and stress. Billy and his father had to experience so many of their own personal insecurities through this development. At times, like when the dad runs away after seeing Billy dance in front of him, these insecurities seem to be too much to handle. However, the family as a whole (Billy, his dad, his brother, and his grandmother) work through it so that the Billy can succeed. In the end, it was not the conditions of worth (characteristics identified by society as desirable) that allowed Billy to be himself, but his excellent organismic valuation process (capability for judging what experiences promote growth) that allowed him to achieve his dream.
ME Terms: Anxiety, stress, inner strength, goal, psychological wishes, subliminal motivators, defense mechanisms, self-actualization, autonomy, thoughts, behaviors, goals, ideal states, achieve, present state, adaptive unconscious, implicit motivation, suppress, desire, subliminal motivation, ego development, movement towards what you’re capable of, relatedness, emotional connection, deep care and concern, importance to someone else, holistic, positive psychology, whole person, development, inner strength, anxious, autonomous, growth, tension, stress, insecurities, conditions of worth, organismic valuation process
I would like to use my April 5th freebie on this blog. Thanks.
Billy Elliott is a movie about a young boy’s development and growth through his youth. Billy initially practices ballet in secret from his family because it is what he enjoys, but does not tell them about it because it is unacceptable for a boy to dance. Social norms pressure him to participate in more masculine sports so he does boxing as well. During this period of the movie Billy is behaving in a way that is validation seeking. He hides the side of him that is socially unacceptable and tries to hide the part that isn’t; this depicts a clear inner conflict for Billy. Throughout the movie we see this completely change. The relationships between Billy and his family become healthier (his need for love/belonging becomes satisfied) and we see Billy accept who he is and do what he wants in such as way that allows him to gain the “esteem” level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Billy is only 11 years old and yet the movie depicts drastic changes, growth, and individual strivings by this young character. These changes are seen both with the quality of his interpersonal relationships as well as within his sense of self.
In the beginning of the movie, Billy partakes in boxing in order to live up to his father’s expectations. He is extrinsically motivated to practice and become good at it so that he receives praise from his father/family. Because this behavior is desirable by the social public as well as his family Billy needs this validation and therefore acts in such a way that will provide him with the positive feedback he desires. We also see a bit of risk-taking by Billy in that he keeps his ballet a secret from his family. While he understands the consequences of his choices, he is still unwilling to give up something is such an intrinsic part of who he is. At one point in the movie, Billy tells his brother and dad that he would rather give up his childhood than give up dance. This statement really indicates how important dance is to Billy, and how it becomes such a part of who he is.
One of the biggest themes of the movie that ties into the chapters is Billy’s feeling of control over his life. Billy feels that everyone wants to tell him what to do and control his life but really he just wants to have control over his own life (he has an external locus of control). He feels that to become self-actualized he must have control over his environment which is something he has never really had. This is really shown in the scene where he is yelling at his instructor about how she screwed up her own life and is trying to tell him what to do just like everyone else. At one point, we see the culmination of people trying to control Billy’s life. We see the dance instructor, Billy’s brother, and father arguing about what he should do. Then we see Billy cope with this by dancing. He has an angry frustrated facial expression, but it is clear that he is using his ballet to deal with the situation. However, the scene does become more upbeat and we really see how he is experiencing personal growth and acceptance of himself.
When Billy is dancing he feels control over his life- he can choose what his next move is and where he is going to go with it. When he is at his rehearsal he tells the judges that he feels that everything goes away when he dances and that it feels good. This is almost like a coping mechanism for Billy; it allows him to control his life and how he is feeling.
Emotions really seem to take over so many aspects of his life that dance allows him to then take control over those emotions. Additionally, Billy’s intrinsic motivation is much more rewarding for him than the extrinsic rewards of other activities such as boxing. Throughout much of the movie we see Billy heavily practicing ballet on his own time and trying to be the best he can be. Billy is clearly able to visualize what his success would look like (he sees his ideal state), and he works extremely hard to achieve that state.
Billy’s father’s reaction to Billy’s choices is also important for the movie. Initially he is furious about a boy participating in ballet because it is socially unacceptable. Discussions between Billy and his father are often heated and very emotional. Billy argues that people who participate in ballet have just as much athleticism while the father argues that he works too hard for his money to waste it on his son taking ballet classes. There is even a level of aggression that is depicted by Billy’s dad as well as by his brother. This made me think of the section in the chapter about doing evil and about how nobody wants to be evil but that we are capable of doing things that are evil. I think Billy’s father’s behavior really shows this. It is obvious that he cares about his son, and the family is going through very difficult things, so he takes it out on him that he is not acting appropriately. However, at the end of the movie we see how proud he is of Billy getting into the dance school. He works extra hard to get enough money for him to go to the audition, takes him there, and then understands that his support is important to such a young boy’s life and mindset. While Billy is at the audition the judges tell them that Billy cannot be successful without the support of his family. From this point in the movie forward, it is really shown that his father has accepted Billy for who he is and supports him. He accepts that Billy is an autonomous, competent person who can do what he sets his mind to. According to the chapter, this is an important part of interpersonal relationships and heavily affects their quality.
Billy also experiences what the chapter terms as self-confirming cycles of high and low engagement. This idea captures the intensity and emotional quality of a person’s participation during somewhat difficult undertakings to control the outcomes that matter to them. As stated previously, Billy had felt little control over his life but was able to fully engage himself in dance and overcome the social stigma of his behavior. In this instance, Billy has perceived control and is challenge seeking. He knows that the situation will be and is difficult but chooses to go for it anyway. The chapter terms this as participating in growth behaviors. This is shown in that Billy puts himself in an uncomfortable situation in order to grow himself into a more open person.
Another minor, but important, portion of the movie is Billy’s relationship with his dance instructor. Billy and his family have to deal with the death of his mother. Billy has to develop ways to cope with his without the social support of his family and their struggle with poverty. The chapter’s discussion of Freud and attachment could be used to demonstrate the relationship that Billy develops with his dance instructor. Freud’s view of psychodynamics and unconscious motivation would say that Billy’s behavior and choices are a result of his loss of relationship with his mom; therefore he reaches out to his instructor as a mother figure. While realistically, Freud would probably stretch this into more than what it is, however it does seem plausible that Billy would be looking for a female figure in his life in order to fill the void of losing his mother.
The chapter related theme of this movie really seems to be personal growth. The chapter defines growth needs as things that can be met once deficiency needs are met. Lack of these makes the individual feel restless and discontent, and the growth need makes the individual feel a need to fulfill their personal potential. Teacher tells the story about Swan Lake and how the princess had to become a swan completely forever to become what she wanted to me. This seems to be a metaphor for how Billy needs to sacrifice to be what he wants to be and to self-actualize and become what he wants to be. While that example shows Billy’s growth needs his deficiency needs are also depicted. Billy’s physiological needs, and safety are met for the most part, however he does not seem to have a lot of love/belonging need or esteem need fulfilled throughout most of the movie. He eventually gains this from his dance instructor and then becomes close with his friend. However, this really changes throughout the move: once Billy’s family accepts him he experiences love and belonging and once that support is received he is able to fulfill his need to esteem and self-acceptance. This feeling is especially shown toward the end when Billy “stands up” for himself by dancing kind of “at” his father when he walks in on him practicing; I found this scene to be very powerful. It is then that he is able to participate in growth behaviors and work toward self-actualization.
Overall, Billy Elliott depicts many aspects of personal striving and individual growth and does a good job of portraying the many aspects and experiences that effect how we develop and grow. Billy’s ability to eventually accept himself, for who he is, causes his family to also eventually accept him; this allows Billy to grow and develop in a healthy way and heads towards an actualized version of himself.
ME Terms: Individual growth, personal striving, psychodynamics, unconscious motivation, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, safety needs, physiological needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, self-actualization, growth needs, deficiency needs, validation seeking, growth seeking, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, socially desirable behaviors, restlessness, discontentment, feedback, risk-taking, desires, control, locus of control, self-acceptance, facial expression, coping, emotions, aggression, evil, reward, ideal state, openness, autonomy, self-confirming cycles of high and low engagement, Freud, attachment, competency, warmth, respect, and interpersonal relationships.
In watching the movie Billy Elliot, I cannot help but think of the line where Billy resists his ballet teachers’ constant critiquing by telling her basically that “you push and push, all you want to do is push, because your life is so ****** up!” This confrontation sums up the essence of the movie for me; it reveals humanistic psychology and a holistic view within Billy’s family dynamics as they experience dramatic life changes. Through the loss of this family’s Wife and Mother, the picketing for laborers rights for the Dad and the oldest boy which means not earning money, caring for a dependent parent or grandmother and raising two boys.
The movie starts out showing Billy doing things that his family expects from him by caring for his Grandma, boxing and going to school. Billy’s interest in music becomes evident in the scene where he is listening to his Brothers record and playing the piano and both times his interest is discouraged, stopped or interrupted. The scene of Boxing shows Billy is so distracted by the piano playing that he disgraces his trainers’ efforts because his interest in music being expressed through dance has piqued his interest.
Billy’s subliminal unconscious preference for expressing himself through music is intrinsically motivating him to take ballet instead of boxing. It is also this choice that causes Billy to feel anxiety, tension and psychological incongruence with himself and his family and societal expectations. That is why Billy hides his ballet slippers and pretends to be going to boxing classes. This incongruence and the struggle for self-actualization is not an easy transition for Billy nor his family primarily because of the lack of communication and the deficiency needs of support, love, belongingness and self-esteem.
Billy has always done what has been expected of him; he unconsciously adapts within his family and the transition toward an organismic value and conditions of worth through unconditional regard from his family is what Billy desires. Billy’s desire to dance is suppressed due to his Brother’s arrest; Billy adapts to his families expectations. This is evident through the scene where the ballet teacher comes to the house to see why Billy missed the audition and through this knowledge Billy’s Brother ridicules ballet and demands that Billy dance. Billy is not mature enough or assertive enough to stand up for himself yet because he seeking validation of his worth that has just been stripped away.
Christmas day reveals that Billy’s implicit motivation and growth seeking behaviors are risking rejection from his father and expressing his desire to dance. This is a pivotal point of change for Billy and his Father. Billy has stepped into the self-actualization process to express his desire to dance not for his teacher or because of her pushing but because his dance allows his to express who he is. Up until this point the only real unconditional positive regard Billy has known is through a letter his Mom wrote to him before she died.
I thought it was a very interesting perspective in the movie where Billy and the ballet teachers’ daughter were up in the daughters’ room discussing their families and the associations of intimacy, dance and sex that were expressed through the eyes of eleven year olds. It was this conversation that challenged Billy to consider why his teacher would coach him and he had to come to the point of wanting to dance for himself and not because he wanted to please his teacher. When Billy danced in front of his Dad this experience expressed his valuation that he wanted to be a dancer, that he wanted to learn how to dance and be given the chance to express himself.
At the point where Billy’s Dad seeks out information from the former ballet teacher about the school of dancing audition, Billy can see his ideal state. It is heartwarming to see the extent that this Dad would go to in order to support and provide a means to get Billy to the audition. Growth motivation is necessary for the audition and you can see how Billy and his Dad struggle through the uncomfortable experience of this school and the expectations and I wondered if Billy would get in as well until he responded to the last question on how dancing makes him feel.
The humanistic psychology perspective is evident through Billy’s reluctant striving toward growth and his self-realization process. It is also evident in his eventual turning away from the façade of self-concealment and living his life according to others expectations of himself. The movie takes the viewer through the struggles of the self-actualization process and how difficult this is for individuals and families to accept, adapt to and to be willing to sacrifice for.
A thought provoking movie from the parental perspective and the expectations parents have for children. It takes some real focused attention toward who are kids really are, I could empathize with this family’s crisis mode unconsciously inflicting incongruence and what might have become maladaptive behavior in Billy had the father not become open to accept Billy’s desire to dance.
Terms: humanistic psychology, holistic positive perspective, self-actualization behaviors, organismic value, conditions of worth, validation seeking, growth motivation, deficiency motivation, incongruence, implicit motivation, adaptive unconsciousness, relatedness, ideal states, growth motivation
The movie Billy Elliot was about a boy, Billy, who became interested in ballet rather than the boxing he was currently doing. His father and brother were currently coal miners on strike, and they were the biggest critics of Billy’s dancing. Billy tried to hide the dancing from them, but his father caught him dancing at one point. He was impressed with Billy’s dancing skills and tried to go back to the mines before the strike was over in order to make enough money for Billy to audition at the Royal Ballet School. His oldest son and the other miners stop him and help raise the money for the audition. After some bumps in the road at the audition, Billy is eventually accepted. At the end, we see Billy fourteen years later as a professional dancer with his family in the audience supporting him.
The first thing I noticed in this movie was self-actualization. Billy first resisted the idea of being a ballet dancer, because it did not match with the male gender identity that others placed on him. However, once he started dancing he realized that he had natural talent is this area and that he also enjoyed it. He reached a point of autonomy when he was willing to show his dance skills to other and especially when he left by himself for dance school. He was open to trying this experience, but he was not willing to be open with the world about what he was doing. However, as the movie progressed and Billy became more confident with his dancing, he became more open. This is why he was willing to audition for the school and eventually make it as a professional dancer.
There was also a lot of humanistic psychology in this movie. Billy’s dance teacher was the first to really push his to grow in this way, but she was also setting expectations of her own to fulfill. During this time, Billy was still lying to his dad about what he was doing, and this showed that he was not comfortable with what he was doing and was not ready for this growth experience. As he began to realize that ballet was what he was talented at and passionate about, he stopped caring so much about what other people thought about it. His dad also began to support him towards the end, and he supported him in areas that would be important to humanistic psychology.
Growth and deficiency needs on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are also present in this movie. Billy wanted to have a sense of belonging in his family, and that is why he pretended to be boxing rather than dancing. He also wanted to be able to have self esteem, and he was not feeling very confident about breaking away from his gender norm. His safety, security, and psychological needs were also challenged at this time because of his brother and father’s strike. Psychologically he was worried about them getting arrested, the strike not ending, or them running out of money to eat. His father and brother also appeared emotionally cold to Billy to, so he didn’t have a close bond with someone that he could go to for help or advice except maybe his grandmother. These were all deficiency needs that Billy struggled with. Though the strike didn’t end when Billy began dancing, ballet gave him an outlet from dealing with the stress of it. He still cared about the strike, but he realized that it was not necessary for him to worry about it. He trusted his father to care for his security and safety, and he began to think more of himself as a person and as a dancer. He addressed these deficiency needs through ballet, which gave him the opportunity to tackle growth needs. Growth needs are usually experienced in uncomfortable situations, because the person is stepping out of their comfort zone. We see this several times with Billy such as when he first joins ballet class, practicing with the ballet instructor in private, showing other people his dancing, auditioning for the dance school, and eventually leaving for the school. He also does some things in private such as practicing ballet and getting a book to study ballet. These actions show that he was not ready for growth in this area at that time.
Billy struggled with his conditions of worth. He believed that the only way he would be accepted in his family was to box. He knew that he would never be good at it, because he didn’t care. However, he kept participating for his brother and dad’s sake. When they found out that he was attending ballet, he thought they no longer valued or loved him. Billy had a tough relationship with his father, and his father did not really express his love to Billy. Billy thought boxing was the only way to have a connection with his dad, and he was worried about losing that bond. Billy did not feel like his father had unconditional positive regard for him and it made him question his organismic valuation.
Billy faced a significant amount of incongruence when looking at his current self compared to his ideal self. His ideal self was a professional ballet dancer, and his current self was someone taking ballet lessons and hiding them from everyone. Billy moved towards congruence by practicing ballet more, agreeing to go to an audition, and letting other people see him dance. His biggest steps in this process were letting his dad see him dance, going to the audition, and going to the dance school. At the end we see there is congruence between Billy’s ideal and current self. Billy’s father also had to deal with incongruence in terms of his expectations for Billy. He expected Billy to engage in more masculine tasks such as boxing and working in the coal mines. It was difficult for him to see that his son was taking ballet classes instead. Billy’s father chose to decrease this incongruence by changing his expectations for Billy. He chose to support Billy in his dreams and adopted Billy’s ideal state as his own hope for Billy.
ME terms: self-actualization, humanistic psychology, growth needs, deficiency needs, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard, organismic valuation, incongruence, ideal self, current self, congruence
To look at the movie from a psychodynamic perspective, Billy’s father is a perfect example. He was born and raised in a coal family and has worked in the mines his whole life. Billy’s brother has been brought up the same way. This view also says that people change very little after puberty. We can see Billy’s father exhibit the same characteristics throughout the movie. He does come to a little revelation at the end of the movie, but it is not a different personality, it was as if his father did not want to embrace his son for who he was and was confused about how to react to Billy. I feel that it was his same personality, but just hidden at the beginning of the movie.
We can see the unconscious in Billy and his dancing. When asked why he dances, Billy’s reply was I don’t’ know. Something in his unconscious leads him to want to dance, to need to dance. These thoughts, feelings, and desires existed at an unconscious level. Billy has implicit motivation to dance, yet it is revealed in his dancing because he is so passionate.
We can also see suppression in Billy’s behavior. He attempts to push down his feelings in front of his father. He tries not to let his excitement for dancing show and hides his ballet shoes under the mattress. This is not a mental suppression, but it is more of a physical repression.
I can also see ego development in progress in the movie. Billy’s id wants him to dance all the time, his ego is trying to filter that to align with what his super ego thinks is right.
This movie is also full of self actualization. Billy’s family is struggling to meet the some basic needs, however, Billy’s needs are being met for the most part. He is in pursuit of self actualization and this can be seen in his behaviors and how he acts throughout the movie. He is making growth choices in trying to learn ballot and doing things that will help him grow as a person. He is also honest with himself. This is painfully obvious at some points in the movie. One in particular is when his father catches him and he dances in front of him. This is different, unpopular and non conformist with his father’s views on what makes a man.
He is situationally positioning himself for peak experiences by going to the audition to try out for the dance school. Without that, he would not be able to have the experience we saw at the end of the movie. He has given up his defensiveness when he gives in to his instructor’s request to continue practicing. He had started to resist her corrections but determines that she is ultimately correct.
He lets the self emerge when he dances, he kind of disappears was his response when asked how it feels to dance. Billy is also open to experience. When he is dancing in front of people, he is baring his soul and it does not get more open than that.
Billy Elliot is a movie about a young man that has a passion to dance. It is outside the norm for boys his age to do that, but he does eventually gain the support from his family to continue with his goal. This movie presented many concepts that can be found within the text book. Namely, the concepts are derived from chapter 14 and 15.
The movie has several psychodynamic concepts that are similar to the ones found in chapter 14. It seemed as though Billy’s dad was trying to suppress the fact that son liked to dance. He didn’t want him to be a “puff”, and encouraged his son to do boxing instead. There also appeared to be conflict between the ego and the id. This can be clearly seen in Billy’s brother. The brother id encouraged him to riot during the union’s revolt when his ego was telling him to obey and respect the law. The id side seemed to win that argument. It is also plain to see that all of the characters had a strong ego, and they did not want it to be hurt. The father and brother to Billy employed defense mechanisms to protect themselves. They both displaced their pent up anxiety and frustrations on Billy. Billy must have had a strong ego effectance. He was able to cope with the challenges, demands, and opportunities the environment presented him with.
The movie had a lot of personal growth in it. All of the characters were able to move up on the hierarchy of needs. Billy was able to move further towards self-actualization when he finally received the proper love and support from his family. He was also able to gain self-esteem from the support and his good ability at the ballet. Therefore, Billy was able to fulfill all of his deficiency needs, and begin work on his growth needs. At the beginning of the movie, however, Billy has a lot of incongruence. He denies his inner desires for dance, and does boxing instead to be more socially acceptable. In doing so, Billy is putting on a façade. He is able to gain congruence and purse his dancing goals when his family supports him. Billy showcased many growth-seeking behaviors. He trained hard and saved up cash to make it to London. His Puff friend presented some validation-seeking behaviors. He dressed in women’s clothing and put on makeup in front of Billy so that maybe Billy would think that its ok or normal. None of Billys Ballet feats would have been possible if it were not for his relationship support. When his instructor and parents were in a supportive role, Billy was able to become autonomous and reach is full potential on his own. From the movie, I would say that Billy is a self-defined person. He has his own desires, and he follows them without caring about what is socially acceptable or not.
TERMS: Psychodynamic, suppression, ego, id, defense mechanisms, displacement, ego effectance, hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs, façade, congruence, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, self-defined, autonomous.
The movie Billy Elliott is all about growing and the motivation each character had to do so. The most growth occurred with Billy. From the very beginning, Billy had an unconscious desire to dance. He loved playing music. Even when he was boxing, he couldn’t help but dance when music was playing. His father, however, expected Billy to box, not dance. Therefore, Billy had unmatching implicit and explicit motivation, something that occurs unconsciously. Billy’s implicit motivation was to dance but he wanted to please his father and brother so he had explicit motivation to box. Another concept of the unconscious is adaptive unconscious. This part of the unconscious set goals, initiates action, and makes judgments while we’re thinking about something else. A good example of this playing a role is when Billy is boxing and once the music starts, he begins to dance around the ring and is unable to box well. This also happens when he is punching the bag. This shows that although Billy wasn’t fully aware of the fact that he loved dancing, his unconscious knew.
Once this desire went into his conscious, Billy did what he could to dance. This began the process of developing his ego. Ego development is the progression towards what the individual could be, in terms of maturity, psychological growth, competence, and autonomy. Throughout the movie, Billy is constantly developing his ego. His choice to take dance classes rather than boxing classes shows his autonomy and the independence to make decisions based off of his wants and needs. He also became more competent because he learned through class and on his own how to become a better dancer, which met his psychological needs and therefore he grew psychologically. All these combined helped him mature very quickly for only being 11 years old. Billy’s father and brother also went through ego development after they accepted Billys dancing. They both became more mature as individuals by supporting Billy and going back to work, something that was difficult for both of them. Ego development leads to psychological well-being.
Throughout the movie, Billy was constantly growing. Almost every step he took was in the directed towards self-actualization, which is the process of realizing your talents, capacities, and potentials. This is done by being autonomous and open to experience. Billy did both of those things. For autonomy, Billy moved away from the expectations of his father and brother so that he could do something that made him truly happy, dance. He depended on himself to go to class, go talk to Miss when he got in trouble, and work hard to make it to the Ballet School audition. For openness, Billy realized at the very beginning that he loved dance and even though it wasn’t accepted, he was going to continue doing it. He became very mindful. Self-actualization needs can also be considered growth needs. Growth needs provide motivation to take actions to reach personal potential. Dancing was a growth need for Billy. It provided him with independence, competence, and happiness.
There are six behaviors that encourage growth, and Billy did all six. He made growth choices by taking the first dance class, going to talk to Miss, taking private dance classes, and going to the audition. He was honest with himself from the beginning in that he knew he loved to dance and he would do it no matter what. It took him awhile to be honest with his family, but he was eventually. He positioned himself for peak experiences by taking private classes with Miss and then doing the audition for the ballet school. Even though Billy was scared to go to the audition and didn’t think he’d make it, he still went to it. He gave up defensiveness by forgetting the fact that most people thought that dancing was for gay people. He also ignored that his family was not okay with his dancing. He let the self emerge by listening to his feelings and accepting his love for dance and pursuing it. He was open to experience by totally absorbing himself in dance and forgetting what anyone else thought.
Billy is a growth-seeking individual. This means that he does things to learn, improve, and reach his personal potential. He saw certain things in his life as an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills about dancing. He knew that Miss could help him with his problems and so he went to her for help, even though he knew that his father wouldn’t approve. An aspect of being a growth-seeking individual is that when adversities come along, they don’t slow them down. Billy’s father strongly disapproved of his dancing but he continued to do it because he loved it and it made him grow. The opposite of growth-seeking is validation-seeking. Individuals who are validation-seeking seek external validation to feel worth, competent, or likeable. They care more about the approval of others rather than what they personally think. An example of this in the movie is Billy’s father and brother. Although they both cared strongly about the strike, they were mainly involved in it because everyone else was and it was considered wrong to give up. Having this kind of worth lead Billy’s father and brother to be very anxious and angry all the time. This tends to be a side effect for individuals who are validation-seeking.
A concept similar to growth-seeking versus validation-seeking is causality orientations. There are two types: autonomy and control. Individuals with an autonomy causality orientation make decisions based off of their feelings and thoughts. They have an internal locus of control so they realize that the consequences of their actions are because of them. The opposite is control causality orientation. People with this type of orientation worry about external factors like money or other people’s opinions. Billy had an autonomy causality orientation. He made his decisions based off of his feelings and desires. He dances because he wants to. He took classes because he wanted to, even though it wasn’t accepted. Billy’s father and brother had control causality orientations. They didn’t accept Billys dancing because it wasn’t socially accepted. They stayed on the strike even though they had financial problems and high levels of stress because it wouldn’t be accepted to give up and go back to work. Eventually, however, Billy’s father and brother changed orientations because they realized it didn’t matter as much; therefore switching to an autonomy causality orientation.
Conditions of worth are a concept that effects the development of children into adulthood. There are two types: unconditional positive regard and conditional positive regard. Conditional positive regard means when a parent gives love or approval to a child when the child does things that they approve of. This can cause conflict with self-actualization and leads to tension and internal confusion because only some behaviors are accepted. This negative way of dealing with children can lead to maladjustment. Unfortunately, Billy’s father provided conditional positive regard most of the movie. He accepted Billys behavior when he would box or not dance, but he did not accept him when he would dance. Fortunately, Billy had the strength to make decisions for himself. The opposite of conditional positive regard is unconditional positive regard. This is when love and approval is given no matter what the child does. The child is accepted for who they are. Miss is one of the only people that gave Billy unconditional positive regard. From the very beginning, she believed in Billy and even though ballet for guys wasn’t socially acceptable, she accepted him. She gave him support and love when his father couldn’t provide it. I believe that she was a huge influence on him and was a big reason why he continued to dance. Eventually, Billy’s father begins to accept him for who he is and Billy receives unconditional positive regard from everyone.
growth, unconscious, implicit/explicit motivation, adaptive unconscious, conscious, ego development, competence, autonomy, psychological needs, self-actualization, openness, mindful, growth needs, 6 behaviors to encourage growth, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, autonomy/control causality orientations, internal locus of control, conditions of worth, unconditional/conditional positive regard
Through out the entire movie up until the very end Billy Elliot struggles with growth and reaching his full potential. His mother is gone and he is left with his macho father and brother and his elderly grandma. He is forced to abandon children s play to live like an adult due to the difficult times with strike going on. In his community and family hard blue collar work is valued over personal growth. In chapter 15 it talks about how what the society values over what the person's inner guide is can create a conflict as it is exemplified with Billy. The scene where Billy dances in front of his dad no longer shamefully hiding it shows the growth Billy experienced and Billy was no longer struggling to hide that part of him.
The scene where Billy decides to actually commit to dancing instead of doing boxing to meet the "society's" expectations and sought an increased level of openness and to develop personal strengths.
What made this movie so true for growth is that Billy did not truly succeed until he had his family's support because relationships support the actualization tendencies by providing warmth genuineness, interpersonal acceptance confirmation. The partial reason the father couldn't help Billy was that the finances were tough but it kind of contradicts Maslows hierarchy because even though they were short on money Billy eventually made his dream come true.Originally Billy thought dancing was for "faries" because that is what is socialized for boys, but eventually Billy began to display more autonmy and openness to the idea.
Billy seems like he was highly validation seeking individual he worried what his instructor thought and what his father thought, but that is how most children are but it could also be argued that he was growth oriented because he did defy his father and argued with the dance instructor and eventually prevailed at not caring what other people think.
The father seemed to displace his frustration and dreams onto Billy and even billy's brother. The father was on strike so it created a lot of tension and he seemed like the type of guy who didn't take it out on his boss but rather brought it home with him.
At the end of the movie it seems that everyone learned some valuable lessons such as the father learning that you can't force your dreams on your children ( sort of like those creepy women on tv with toddlers and tiaras) that it is best to support meaningful people even if you don't necessarily support what they are doing. It was also a big theme about there is more to life than just work that sometimes you have to know when to pick your battles , even if everyone else is choosing one battle don't just jump in.
Terms used: displacement, openness, hierarchy of needs, inner guide, growth needs, personal strengths, autonmy, esteem, validation, control
Billy Elliot is a movie about an 11 year old young boy, Billy, who has a passion for dancing. He is growing up in a time where boys dancing is very much frowned upon, especially by his dad and older brother. Billy’s mom passed away and so his only influence is his dad and brother. His dad tries to influence Billy to continue with his boxing lessons, but Billy is very passionate about dancing and must decide which route to take. The main person who pushes him to continue with dancing is his ballet teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson.
One of the things that really stuck out to me in the movie that related back to the book, was the fact that Billy reached self actualization by the end of the movie. Self actualization is the top of the pyramid in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Billy had probably already reached the levels of Psychological Needs and Safety/Security Needs because he had a family where he felt secure and all his needs (food, hunger, etc) were being met at that time. Once he received the love and belonging of his father and brother when they came to terms with Billy dancing and accepted it. Once the did that, Billy reached the level of Belonging/Love needs. The next level is Esteem Needs. Once Billy had the support of his father and brother, he was able to truly give everything he had to dancing. That lead Mrs. Wilkinson, his ballet teacher, to get him an audition at the Royal Ballet School, which lead to an even higher esteem boost. Then he had mastered this level. Self Actualization came next when Billy realized who is truly was and what truly made him happy. He was a dancer and once he realized that and had the support of his family, he reached the point of self actualization and was able to grow even more within himself.
Deficiency Needs are the bottom four needs on Maslow’s pyramid: physiological, safety/security, love/belonging, and esteem. Before Billy was able to reach and master these four levels, there were a lot of deficiencies in his life. Billy was deprived of the love and belonging feeling from his father and brother. This caused Billy to stop his growth at the safety/security level. He was also deprived of his esteem needs for awhile. He was forced to be involved in boxing by his dad, even though he wasn’t very good at it. This caused a lot of damage to Billy’s self esteem. . . until he became a dancer. Once he mastered dancing, and his father became accepting of it, he then mastered that level as well. He then reached self actualization, which is what all people strive for in their lives.
If you take a look at Billy’s brother in this movie, Tony, we can see a lot of conflict going on between his Id and Ego. I was most aware of this when he was struggling to choose whether to participate in a riot or not. His Id was telling him to join with the riot of the Union’s revolt. On the other hand, his ego was telling him to stay away from the riot and obey the laws that had been put in place. He went back and forth between these choices, but his id ended up winning the argument.
Another topic in these chapters that related back to the movie was Ego Effectance. This is defined as a person’s competence in dealing with the environmental challenges, demands, and opportunities. You can tell that Billy really seems to have this ego effectance. He seems to really accept some of the challenges and demands that his life has in store. He keeps pushing on with boxing for awhile because that is his fathers passion for him. That is one of the main challenges that Billy faces in this movie: continue with boxing for his father or dance for himself. Another part of this is opportunities. Billy has the opportunity to dance at a recital his teacher found for him. Billy really wants to take this opportunity because dancing is very important to him, and he has to choose. Billy goes through all this until his father becomes accepting of his passion for dance and then Billy reaches self actualization and fully embraces who he is.
TERMS: self actualization; hierarchy of needs; psychological needs; safety/security needs; belonging/love needs; esteem needs; deficiency needs; id; ego; ego effectance;
Billy Elliot was an amazing movie to relate to motivation and emotion! Billy definitely struggles with inner conflict. He wants to be able to do what he loves and makes him happy, dancing but he wants to please his father by boxing. This whole scenario shows a lot about are recent chapters. First, it shows the concept of repression. Billy, at first, hides that he is not going to boxing lessons anymore. He feels as though if he just hides this and lets his father THINK he is going, it will all work out in the end. I think this also shows social acceptance and how it can affect us. His father does not want Billy dancing because that is not the norm for boys his age. He is worried what others will say about Billy and himself for that matter. Another important concept is the projection of feelings. Billy's father wants him to box because he did. He has expectations and Billy doesn't exact fit what he thought his son would. His first son followed in his footsteps and does his job but Billy is "different" and that seems to upset him.
I think that Billy's dance teacher also projects some feelings onto Billy. You can tell the class really isn't up to her liking. They just don't seem to do everything perfectly, especially her daughter Debbie. She is always yelling at her to do this and that better. Once she notices Billy's ability she focuses on him and seems happier because he work is paying off. In a sense, Billy is just talented and that is not true but we will let her think that. There is also an emotional connection you can see when Billy is dancing. He feels the music and shows his happiness, very beautiful.
We see Billy reach his goal in the end. He has the lead role in Swan Lake. We may not have seen his hard work or his goal settings but he reached his attained goal. When he was in dance class he was growth seeking. It came almost natural to him and he was seeking bigger and better things. Billy found an almost rewarding feeling from Mrs. Wilkinson's happiness. They both benefited greatly from each other. But Billy always had to have drive to get to his goals. The drive to do the best and get to the top was his motivation. His father did not support it at the beginning but he noticed how much it meant to him and did support him in the end.
ME terms: attained goal, inner conflict, projection, repressed feelings, drive, social acceptance, growth seeking.
Billy Elliot is about an eleven year old boy who loves music. You can see this passion that he has for music right at the beginning of the movie when he is boxing; he punches the punching bag to the beat of the music that the ballet students are using. He goes and joins in with the ballet girls and finds out that he actually really likes dancing too. He tries as hard as he can to keep it a secret because he knows that his father will not approve of him dancing ballet. Billy gets away with it for awhile, but eventually his father finds out that he hasn’t been going to boxing anymore and goes to the gym to investigate. He finds Billy dancing with all the girls and he is furious. He forbids Billy to go to ballet class and he doesn’t go for awhile, but starts going again. While all this is going on Billy’s father and brother are miners who are on strike and not working because of the union. This is putting a strain on the family, along with Billy having to take care of his grandmother when his father and brother are away at work or on strike every day. His father ends up letting him go back to dancing and Billy even auditions at a school in London designed for the arts. He ends up getting in and his family is ecstatic for him. At the end of the movie it shows Billy dancing as a professional dancer on stage of a large auditorium and his dad and brother are there to cheer him on because they are finally truly proud of him.
A very strong emotion that is present throughout a lot of the movie is happiness. Billy really enjoys dancing and it makes him very happy. Billy also seems like he is extroverted, which makes him more apt to be a happy person. Even thought Billy knew his father wouldn’t approve of what he was doing, he did it anyway because it made him happy. This is a characteristic of extroverts. I wouldn’t say that Billy’s father is neurotic, but he acts like it in the first half or so of the movie when he is totally against Billy dancing and even playing music in the house. He even goes to the extent of smashing the piano that belonged to his wife because he didn’t want Billy to have anything to do with music and dancing. He seemed like a somewhat unhappy person at first until he came to grips that it was okay for Billy to dance and do what he loved to do.
I think out of all the main characters Billy’s father expressed the most emotion. He kind of seemed like a hard, cold man at the beginning of the movie. Billy seemed to be scared of him whenever he was being yelled at. When he found out that Billy was dancing it seemed like he got really angry at the world. He did things, like smashing the piano, that he normally would not have done and this shows that he has a bad temper. When he starts accepting that Billy wants and likes to dance his attitude totally changed. He had the attitude that he would do whatever he could to get enough money for Billy to go and audition for this school of arts in London. He even went as far as making himself go back to work in the mines because he wanted to get the money for Billy. When his older son found out that his father was going to work in the mines again he chased him down and there was a really emotional moment. Billy’s brother chased down his father asking why he would give in to the union after all the work they had done and his father broke down crying. This shows what kind of person the man really is. He cared about his children enough to give up everything he had worked for in order to provide the money he needed for Billy to get into the school for the arts. I think that his father was so against the dancing at first because he wanted and felt like he needed control.
Billy ended up trying the dance class at first because he had a repressed feeling in his unconscious. He didn’t know why he did it at first until he found out that he actually really enjoyed dancing. Once he started dancing that repressed feeling came out of his unconscious and Billy was now conscious of it. This is why he kept dancing even though he knew he would get in trouble if his father found out what he was doing.
I do recommend this movie to others. It is a good movie about finding what you love to do and acting on that passion despite what others may think of it. It is an inspiring movie for everyone.
Terms used: happiness, extroversion, anger, emotions, repressed feelings, unconscious, conscious
The movie “Billy Elliot” is a great example of many of the topics discussed in Chapters 14 and 15, along with topics from many other chapters we covered. Within the first quarter of the movie, we see the internal struggle Billy has about wanting to learn to dance and wanting to avoid problems at home by continue to participate in boxing training. This is a good example of psychodynamics in which the conscious will versus the unconscious counterwill. Billy feels like he should do boxing to please his father (will) but what he really wants to please himself is dancing (counterwill). This is illustrated very explicitly in the film during the scenes where Billy is supposed to be paying attention to boxing but keeps gazing over at the ballet studio and his internal struggle is visible to the viewer.
Throughout the film, Billy’s father seems very harsh and unsupportive of Billy’s dream of dancing ballet. He expects Billy to do boxing or wrestling or a “male” sport and dreams of anything else are very foreign to him having never reached self-actualization for himself. For Billy’s full self to emerge he needed positive regard. Instead he was in a situation where he had to internalize his conditions of worth. If he wanted his father’s positive regard then he must act the way his father wants him to behave (i.e., boxing). He knew he would not get his father’s positive regard if he did ballet, therefore he struggled with parental conditions of worth.
Billy also employed some defense mechanisms as discussed in Chapter 14. One good example of this is that after his audition at the ballet school, he sat down and there was another boy sitting in the room. He kept asking Billy about his audition and telling him it was no big deal if he didn’t get in, that he could try again next year. Billy took his own anxiety about letting himself and his father and friends down and about his worry about how well he did out on the boy by punching him. This is referred to as displacement which is where you take your anger out about one thing onto a substitute object.
Above all else, this movie is very good at visualizing what self-actualization looks like. If we use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and apply it to Billy’s journey throughout the movie, then we can see where Billy climbed four levels to reach self-actualization. He started out the film with his physiological needs being met sufficiently. He had food, water, shelter, clothing and his basic needs met. Safety and security came next and his home life was filled with insecurities. His father and brother were embroiled in a strike that often times resorted in violence and Billy did not feel safe sneaking around to do ballet. Love and belongingness were not met either because Billy did not receive much affection and he felt different from his father and brother and sort of felt alone within his family. He missed his mother and suffered with sadness and grief over her missing out on his life and being there to support him. His esteem needs were not met because he had little self-efficacy and felt like he was out of place. He didn’t have anyone giving him much positive regard. Little by little throughout the movie, these deficiency needs are met for Billy. He begins to feel love and belongingness from his family, he starts getting support for his dancing and his self-esteem begins to rise. Finally, at the end we see that he has become an extremely talented dancer at the ballet school where he has a lead part in Swan Lake. His family is there to watch him and you can tell that not only has Billy reached his potential and self-actualized but his father has taken this huge journey too and is living his dreams through his son.
ME terms used: will, counterwill, conscious, unconscious, psychodynamics, self-actualization, conditions of worth, positive regard, defense mechanisms, displacement, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
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In the beginning, Billy Elliott was having a conflict between his conscious and unconscious motivation. He consciously wanted to box because it was the socially acceptable choice but he really wanted to dance. He got acceptance from the girls in the class and the ballet teacher so he felt able to accept his desire to dance and reject boxing. Throughout this movie, Billy is growing and self-actualizing. Billy takes up ballet even though many people including his father would not approve because it is something he really wants to do. Billy showed that he had an autonomy causality orientation because he allowed his needs and interests to regulate his behavior and rejected social cues. This provided Billy with a greater degree of motivation with ballet. He had intrinsic motivation to dance and extrinsic motivation (his father) to box which is why he pursued dancing. Because he was intrinsically motivated to dance, he showed persistence, drive, and positive outcomes with ballet. He also felt happy and satisfied while dancing. Thus, he was more successful at ballet than boxing.
Billy was definitely a growth-seeking individual rather than a validation-seeking individual. He sought to reach his personal potential and did not rely on others to provide him with a sense of worth. Instead of giving up and feeling unworthy when his teacher criticized him, he persisted and progressed.
Billy’s father did not support his actualizing tendency in the beginning and for most of the movie. He was pretty controlling and he pushed Billy toward a commitment to conditions of worth. He was not supportive of Billy’s dancing when he first found out. Billy’s father provided him with conditional positive regard. He provided love, acceptance, and support when Billy did what he wanted and acted how he wanted like partaking in boxing. This shows Billy that his experiences are not valuable unless approved by others. Luckily, Billy maintained his organismic valuation and avoided doing things based on other people’s perception of worth. Billy’s dad used conditional regard to try and create internal compulsions with Billy to carry on the family tradition of boxing. Because of this, Billy lied to his father and told him he was boxing when he was really dancing. This may have created a psychological incongruence for Billy at home. He had to be a different person at home than who he really felt he was. For a while, he adopted a façade at home but when his father caught him dancing, he started to show his true self and feelings.
I think Billy’s dad had a hard time accepting his dancing because he was raised with conditional positive regard and was taught to be validation-seeking. He was taught that social approval is what is important. I think a big part of why Billy’s father was so angry is because he was trying to suppress his wife’s death and it was frustrating because suppression doesn’t work. He tried to distract himself from thinking about her but ended up very frustrated, angry and crying a lot because he tried to suppress his thoughts and feelings. His frustration is one reason he was easily upset. I also think he used displacement. He was angry that he lost his wife so he let that anger out in other ways as an ego defense mechanism. As the movie progressed and he still had issues with his wife’s death but he was able to accept and support Billy’s dancing once he saw how much it meant to him. Because of changing his conditional regard for Billy to unconditional positive regard, he allowed Billy to live by self-definition and grow to self-actualize. He began to support Billy and create a greater relatedness with him which helped Billy be autonomous and allowed him to do what he was intrinsically motivated to do. In the end, we see that Billy has grown and gained self-actualization because he was successful at what he wanted to do and let his true self emerge.
This was my first time watching Billy Elliot and I really enjoyed it! The movie had alot of concepts from chapters 14 and 15. Billy Elliot can be evaluated by both theoretical bases: psychodynamic and positive psychology/humanisitic psychology.
The story fits perfectly with the psychodynamic approach. Billy Elliot is a movie about a young boy facing conflicts. At the beginning of the movie Billy is the one facing conflicts but afterwards Billy's father end up facing conflicts as well.
The most obvious conflict he experiences is between dance and his gender. The movie is also perfect when considering humanistic psychology. Billy is experiencing the two messages that every individual has on how to act and behave socially; these are from biological temperament and the other from cultural priorities. Billy enjoys dancing but cultural priorities in England at this time believe this creates gender role conflicts. It is not socially acceptable for men to dance. If I considered the movie from a psychodynamic approach Billy’s ego tells him to engage in normal gender appropriate activities but there is conflict with his id because he feels pleasure from dancing. This is an example of the pleasure principle. Billy might have the will or idea that he shouldn’t dance but it is in conflict with his counterwill or counterideas. This is exactly what they refer to as psychodynamics: “clashing of forces”.
A perfect example of Billy’s id, ego, and use of ego defense is in the dressing room with his dance teacher. Billy wants to give up; he does not want to try anymore. The dance teacher won’t let him give up. This makes him angry and Billy uses ego defense, specifically projection, yelling at her that she is a failure. “Don’t pick on me because you effed up on your own life.” He is also trying to rationalize why she was yelling at him.
If Freud considered the Billy's father he would probably believe that the father expressed thanatos. From the Dual instinct theory Freud might believe the father's aggression had manifested to prejudice. He was prejudiced against male dancers, especially his son dancing.
Billy portrays some of the ideas behind object relations theory. Billy spends his time with the other boy in ballet. Billy satisfies his need for relatedness by relating to this other young boy. For the most part Billy does not speak about ballet with anyone besides ballet students and the ballet teacher.
Billy’s choice to continue dancing displays the fact that he is listening to his inner guide over social expectation or cultural priorities.
A humanistic approach would believe that Billy is dancing because it could be his striving toward fulfillment. Billy is going through the realization called self-actualization. Billy is beginning to realize some his talents and potentialities.
I really enjoyed the movie. It was a feel good movie. I loved the storyline of Billy and his father. At the end of the movie they lead you to think Billy has finally became a famous dancer. This also speaks alot about his genuine and persevering motivation to be a dancer.
TERMS: psychodynamic, positive psychology, humanisitic psychology, conflicts, biological temperament, cultural priorities, ego, id, pleasure principle, will, ideas, counterwill, counterideas, ego defense, projection, rationalize, Freud, Thanatos, aggression, dual instinct theory, object relations, self-actualization, inner guide, social expectation, relatedness,
trivial question, what have in common mary anne evans and Lucile Dupin with billy elliot?
The answer is that the three did something that people thought it was inappropriate for them to do, the first two were two nineteenth-century writers had to change its name to George Eliot and George Sand to publish their books, because society nineteenth century saw not right for women to publish their books.
More than a century later, in the XXI century England prejudices still prevent people from being totally free.
When you're a child the pressure of your friends and your parents greatly affects you when your parents get upset with you or insult your children will suffer a lot, so it is very strange that a boy of 11 years to do something that others not approve.
Why dance billy elliot motivates both to prefer being disowned by their parents and friends before they stop?
What reason is there to do something you do not get any tangible reward, which is grounds for something that you will not win anything (except your personal satisfaction) and instead you are getting the criticism from everyone else?
I think of all motivation theories and explanations we've seen over this years the most adequate to explain the behavior of billy elliot is intrinsic motivation, described as the propensity to engage ones Inherent Interest and Capacities to Exercise ones and, in doing so, to seek out and master optimal Challenges (Deci and Ryan, 1986).
Today many children are subjected to great pressure by their parents to say, "You have to get all A, you have to play basketball, you have to learn to play the piano and when you finished with all this you'll have to learn Spanish ".
But what really is this good for children? When I was a kid I was at a tennis academy which prepares people to be professional. I remember it was very hard, we got up at 7 am, had breakfast and we trained 8 to 10, 10 and 13 were going to class, from 13 to 14 we ate, rested 14 to 15 and 15 to 19 are in training again and at night from 21 to 23 back to study. When you have ten or twelve years and you have to put that training so hard you think, "I enjoy doing it?, How long will I have to get it?" I loved to play tennis, but I did not like being told what I had to do all the time, so I did not like discipline, I did not like training five hours a day ...... I was 12 years.
Because I say this and how it relates to Billy, My theory is that bigger, poe, mozart, woody allen, michael jordan ..... ! or billy elliot! enjoy doing doing what they do without expecting any reward, for the simple pleasure of writing, dance or play basketball, I liked to play tennis but when you have to train five hours a day you start to hate him, you do not think we happened to michael jordan, I could get up at night and go to practice at the pavilion. Another example, the Williams sisters, two of the best tennis players in history, these girls were trained militarily by his father since he was five years in one of the worst neighborhoods in LA, the two played and won many tournaments, but once won much money they decided to retire, though still the best, my opinion is that their intrinsic motivation was less than its extrinsic motivation. I think when a child is encouraged with a reward for doing something his interest wanes after receiving the award.
My opinion is that high intrinsic motivation is synonymous with success in life, I think one of the most important things is to feel pleasure when you do something, and billy elliot felt an incredible passion for ballet, an intrinsic motivation that even the prejudices of their society couldnt stop.
I think that it is very interesting to review and dissect movies with the perspective of a psychologist. Viewing the movie Billy Elliot and making connections with chapters 14 and 15 is quite intriguing. The first thing that popped into my mind was the idea of the unconscious and how it affected Billy throughout the movie. I think that his natural gravitation towards ballet could be seen as something of an unconscious behavior. When people ask him why he started to dance he can never really think of an answer except that he just felt like he should do it. This could lead into a long debate of Freudian unconscious but since his work is largely ignored now I won’t spend too much time on it. I would think that Freud would be very intrigued by Billy’s penchant for ballet dancing in a coal mining town where no other boys do ballet and the fact that his mother is gone. If you were to look at Billy’s attraction to ballet it may be understood better from the adaptive unconscious viewpoint. The adaptive unconscious has the ability to appraise the environment, set goals, make judgments, and initiate action, all while we are consciously thinking about something else. This model fits perfectly with the scene where Billy is trying to box but unconsciously starts to dance to the music he hears.
The concept of suppression is not directly noticeable in the movie but it could be assumed that several of the characters have tried to suppress thoughts throughout the movie. Thoughts of Billy’s mom, in particular, were probably attempted to be suppressed by both Billy and his father. Billy, his father and his brother may have all tried to suppress thoughts about ballet dancing in general, after it was known that he was dancing.
Billy probably had a few ego defense mechanisms that helped him get through the tough criticism that he received from doing ballet. One mechanism that we see him use is projection, attributing one’s own unacceptable desire or impulse onto someone else. When he gets mad during practice he runs to the bathroom and then yells at Mrs. Wilkinson for making him be a dancer when she didn’t amount to anything. This is a defense mechanism that is used a lot. Billy may have also fantasized like many children do to avoid the negative effects of others around him. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that both Billy’s father and brother, Tony, had some stage of denial after finding out that he was dancing ballet. The fight between Tony and his father, Jackie, may have been a form of displacement for the father. Jackie is really mad at the coal company for not offering the workers enough money and so they are all on strike. This pent up aggression towards the owners and deal makers is being displaced onto Tony. This anger, about the strike, is the same for Tony and he takes it out on Billy by yelling at him and the riot police by fighting with them, which leads to his arrest.
The goal of reaching self-actualization, the process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals, and a dependence on others is the ultimate goal from Billy throughout this movie. We can look at the process of reaching self-actualization through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Before Billy can achieve his growth needs, self-actualization, he must first meet his survival or deficiency needs. He has his physiological needs well met, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to do sports. He seems to be pretty well off no his safety and security needs as well, even though there is a lot of unrest he never seems to be in danger. The need for love and belongingness appears to be achieved by the end of the film. He has always had his best friend Michael and Debbie, to some extent, for this need. But, it isn’t until he gets into the ballet school that we really see the love between Billy, his father and his brother. It’s at this same point that his esteem needs are being met, with the approval of his super macho father and brother accepting his goals to be a dancer. With all of these needs being met Billy is free to achieve his self-actualization at the ballet school in London where he will be on his own.
ME Terms: esteem needs, love and belongingness, safety and security needs, physiological needs, survival or deficiency needs, growth needs, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, displacement, denial, fantasized, projection, ego defense mechanisms, suppression, adaptive unconscious, Freud, unconscious
The movie Billy Elliot strongly related to growth motivation and positive psychology from Chapter 15. According to our text book, humanistic psychology argues that “rejecting one’s nature in favor of social priorities puts personal growth and psychological well-being at risk.” The main character, Billy struggled with choosing between something so “sissy” as dancing or “manly” boxing that he didn’t like and wasn’t near as good at. He had to choose between what he enjoyed and what society including his macho dad and brother would want him to do. Humanistic psychology is all about discovering human potential by striving toward growth and self-realization and away from façade, self-concealment, and the pleasing and fulfilling of the expectations of others. You can tell that Billy gets tired of holding up the façade and lies of going to boxing and is almost relieved when everything is out and in the open when his father learns he has been taking ballet lessons instead. When Billy decided to try out for a prestigious ballet school he could have been self-actualizing, although I’m not certain all of his deficiency needs were met on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At the very least Billy demonstrated an actualizing tendency. There was something within him that made him want to stretch his boundaries and strive for more. He would have experienced a great deal of autonomy when he moved to a big city away from his parents. He would have to depend on and regulate himself away from his family. It also would take a great deal of openness in order to overcome his past experiences and fears. You can see Billy grow from feeling timid and defensive, even punching a future class mate, to hopeful of the new experiences and talent he could gain at the school. Our text book also examines how relationships support the actualizing tendency. Early in the movie, I was concerned about Billy’s relationship with his father. Billy’s father seemed to display conditional regard, which is offering love for obedience paired with withdrawal of love for disobedience. Billy’s father reacted very harshly to Billy’s interest in dance and Billy’s awkward relationship with his feminine male friend Michael. As the movie progresses, Billy’s father and brother drastically change. They see how talented and passionate Billy is about dancing and that it is a huge outlet for him. Then they begin to support him in every way possible: scrounging up money, doing a 180 on their values and crossing picket lines to earn money, acting proud of him, getting friends and neighbors involved and showing up for his big show. Billy also had a quality relationship with his friend Michael. The relationship contained all five characteristics that reflect the quality of an interpersonal relationship: warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation of the other person’s capacity for self-determination. Another relationship between the movie Billy Elliot and our book was how motivation can arise from a source that lies outside of conscious awareness and volitional intent from Chapter 14. The term implicit motivation refers to these motivations that occur out of a person’s conscious awareness and are indirect, implied, or not well understood. Billy couldn’t describe during his interview why he liked to dance. He just knew that he did. I doubt Billy even knows why he was drawn into that first small town ballet class full of girls. Music was intrinsically motivating for him. He just plain enjoyed music and dancing and was naturally good at it. Billy had many words to describe how dancing made him feel. Dancing was such a positive experience for him that it created almost an out of body experience. He compared it to flight or electricity. I believe Billy became a fully functioning individual because of his choice of exploring his authentic self over succumbing to societal standards.
Terms used: growth motivation, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, well-being, self-realization, façade, self-actualizing, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, actualizing tendency, strive, autonomy, openness, conditional regard, quality relationship, implicit motivation, intrinsic motivation
Billy Elliot
When the movie first started, I found it difficult to understand their accent. I had to listen intently and pay closer attention than I normally would have to—just something I found interesting because they were still speaking in English. Billy Elliot is a rather fascinating story. His mother has passed away and he is living in a tiny place with his dad, grandmother, and older brother. He is trying to live up to his dad’s expectations and practice boxing but he is terrible at it and dislikes the activity entirely. From chapter thirteen, I noticed the individual differences in emotional and motivational states between people in the same situation within all three of the men dealing with the death of their mother/wife. Billy’s dad is also on strike with the Miner’s Union so he is having a very difficult time coping with the stress. He seems to be in denial, convincing himself that smashing the piano is not a big deal because “she’s dead”, and that’s it.
The actualizing tendency is an innate continual presence that guides Billy toward his genetically determined potential. He becomes motivated to undertake a new and challenging experience. Billy is a sensation seeking person, so he starts to take ballet lessons with Miss and when his dad finds out he takes his sadness, stress, and anger out on him, known as displacement because Billy is younger and weaker. During a stressful ballet lesson, Billy screams at his teacher that he can’t do it and runs away. He was engaging in behavior to decrease his arousal by running away. The overarousal was causing him emotional disruption by producing anger, irritability, and anxiety. You see Billy put his growth needs above his needs for survival has he continues to practice ballet. Throughout the movie you notice Billy’s perceived control grow. In the beginning he feels he has no control as his dad and brother make fun of ballet, set him on the table and yell at him to dance, and suppress his innate desire. Eventually Billy keeps going to lessons, and finally his dad catches him dancing with his friend and Billy keeps dancing. Here you notice Billy’s desire for control over come him as he does what he wants despite his dad’s disapproval. When his dad realizes Billy is a great dancer he tries to go back to work. His superego—the, “what you ought to do”, has come into play here as he needs money to send Billy to the school of his dreams. The friend that Billy was dancing with turns out to be a homosexual young man who is Billy’s good friend through thick and thin. One day Billy goes over to his house and finds him dressed up in his sister’s dress and putting on make-up. It is then that we discover that his dad does so also when no one is around, so Billy’s friend was primed to do the same. The subliminal presentation of his father dressed in women’s clothing could have been an unconscious priming for him to try it. It also could have helped him to understand and accept his sexual orientation. You see Billy put his growth needs above his needs for survival has he continues to practice ballet. After Billy auditions, he waits for a very long time to finally find out he got in! During this time he goes through the organismic valuation process as his innate capability for judging whether the experience of going off to London will either promote or reverse personal growth. Thankfully he decides to go and the movie ends with a fantastic scene of him as the Swan Prince!
Terms: individual differences, denial, aroused, overarousal, emotional disruption, anxiety, irritability, anger, sensation seeking, perceived control, desire for control, superego, priming, unconscious, growth needs, survival needs, actualizing tendency, motivated, organismic valuation process, growth
This movie is a great example of positive psychology through an example of the struggles that goes through in order to reach self-actualization. Billy Elliot is at boxing practice when he first discovers his interest in ballet. Billy attempts to suppress his desire to dance because his dad, a boxer himself, would not stand for it. Billy somewhat understands that his Dad’s identity would be threatened. Billy’s own identity would be threatened. Billy’s role in society is as a boy. Only girls and “poofs” dance. Just as the book discussed the more Billy tried to suppress his desire to dance the more he thought about it.
Billy is driven to ballet by the implicit need for achievement. Ballet is where his passion is. Billy describes dancing with feeling like electricity. He wants to learn ballet because he loves to dance. This is intrinsic motivation at work. Billy’s organismic valuation process recognizes ballet is a potential growth experience. Billy’s need for relatedness battles with his need for self-actualization. Due to the fact that Billy has been of course exposed to conditions of worth, Billy knows that male ballet dancers are not socially accepted. Billy’s need for positive regard is high especially from his father and he knows that his father would be extremely upset. Although dancing could have a negative impact on fulfilling his need for relatedness Billy is willing to make the sacrifice in order to fulfill his needs for self-actualization and need for autonomy. Billy’s need for autonomy is most likely much more intense than his need for relatedness since he does not have many positive intimate relationships.
Billy begins dancing in secrecy. This is difficult because Billy probably felt some anxiety about someone finding out and even admitting that he liked ballet dancing. Billy is able to face major insecurities to fulfill his need for self-actualization. He is forced to deal with these insecurities because there is incongruence present. Billy is unhappy with the façade that he likes boxing and that someday he will fulfill his father’s boxing gloves. I think Billy was beginning to feel the consequences from this congruence before he began dancing. When he dances Billy experiences a eudaimonic type of happiness. Billy appears to have autonomy causality orientation because he focused more on his needs, interest, and personally valued goals than the social expectations. Just as the book described Billy who is autonomy causality oriented is motivated intrinsically to dance. Even when his dad finds out that Billy has been dancing, Billy does not allow this to effect his personal worth, therefore demonstrating that he is a growth-seeking individual.
Billy goes through a six step process concerning his progress in ballet: motivation, incongruence engagement, development, learning, performance, and psychological well-being. What is really interesting about Billy is that he is able to reach self-actualization. One major characteristic of Billy that made is possible is his string need for autonomy. The other fundamental direction that Billy possessed was openness. He was open to the idea of dancing and this is how he was able to find true happiness. He did not ignore the fact that dancing was his passion even though he knew there would negative consequences.
Although learning ballet was difficult to learn Billy’s intrinsic motivation pushed him to continue. It is important to look at the positive relationship that Billy did have. Billy’s best friend, Michael, fully supported Billy in dancing. Michael did not have commitment to conditions of worth therefore did not judge Billy in a negative way. He simply supported what Billy wanted to do. Their relationship was genuine and they shared warmth, empathy, and interpersonal acceptance. Also the ballet instructor provided a strong positive relationship that fully supported his dancing. Without these relationships Billy might not have found his passion.
Terms; identity, suppression, positive psychology, self-actualization, intrinsic motivation, organismic valuation process, growth experience, autonomy, engagement, façade, autonomy causality oriented, growth-seeking
Our final movie blog post is over Billy Elliot, and I really liked it! This movie about a boy who goes from boxing to ballet and in the process, finds himself. Of course, he meets adversity along the way from his widowed father and older tough brother. With the help of his dance teacher, he figures out what he truly wants out of life.
Right from the start, you can tell that Billy has a unconscious desire to dance. He plays his brother's records and plays the piano. Even when he is boxing, when he hears the music he can't help but move to the beat. This unconscious desire moves to his conscious when he joins in with the dance class. Holism when occurs when mind and body come together with this desire and become whole. This desire begins with the id, which is the "I want it right now" complex. He wanted to dance at that moment.
As we observe through the movie, Billy goes through ego development and becomes more mature; he finds himself. This emergence of self occurs through deciding to sneak around and take ballet lessons from Miss instead of going to boxing. He was gaining congruence with acceptance of the self. Billy works towards self-actualization: fulfilling his fullest potential. He works on becoming autonomous by releasing the hold his father and brother had on every decision that pertained to him. Billy is growth-seeking; growth-seeking centers personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Billy decided that taking ballet would be a growth experience; this means he took part in the organismic valuation process.
There are six ways to encourage growth, and Billy did all six throughout the movie on his journey to self-actualization. He made growth choices like joining the dance class and sneak by his father. He was honest with himself and his love for dance despite the social stigma that went along with it at the time. He situationally positioned himself for peak experiences by not giving up and continuing ballet, which led to his audition with the Royal Ballet School. He gave up defensiveness by not letting the stigma get to him and continuing against his father's wishes. He let his self emerge by expressing his emotions through dance. Finally, he was open to experience and this was shown by Billy taking the audition. Through this growth, Billy was able to move from control casuality orientation where he relied on external guides to autonomy casuality orientation where he relied on his inner guide. At the end of this journey, Billy was able to become a fully functioning individual and gain eudaimonic well-being. Also, his family was able to transport their love from a conditional positive regard of negative internal compulsions to unconditional positive regard concerning ballet.
Billy's anger with his dad moves from his preconscious to his conscious when they are discussing ballet at the table and his dad gets under his skin.
The Hierarchy of Human Needs was also prevalent throughout the movie. The physiological need for food was there because they were tight on money so had to conserve. Security in their job was an important part in the movie for his dad and brother. Love and belongingness had a big impact between Billy and his family. The need for esteem was prominent in Billy because without a high self-esteem, he would've caved at the first mention of the social stigma of ballet for men. These four needs are known as deficiency needs because the absence of them inhibits growth and development.
Billy's dad and brother played huge roles in the movie. They both used the defense mechanism of displacement to take out their anger about the miners and the strike verbally on the family especially Billy. They both were validation-seeking when it came to the strike. They didn't really want to do it, at least his dad, and were doing it only because the whole union was. Billy's dad and brother both had conditions of worth about Billy's desire for ballet. They were quick to reject the idea even though their mother would have let him do it.
Finally, a small role played was Michael, Billy's in-the-closet-gay friend. Michael has implicit motivation: all those motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments that operate outside a person's conscious awareness and that are fundamentally distinct from those of self-report. This refers to him dressing up in girls' clothing, wearing make-up, putting Michael's hands in his jacket, etc. Michael also used the defense mechanism of rationalization in the scene when Billy visits Michael at his house and he is dressed in his sister's dress. He says that his dad does it when he thinks no one else is home.
In the end, Billy is able to live by self-definition and live to his full potential.
ME Terms: Ego development, conscious, preconsious, unconscious, implicit motivation, id, ego, defense mechanisms, displacement, rationalization, holism, self-actualization, autonomy, Hierarchy of Human Needs, physiological/security/love and belongingness/esteem needs, deficiency needs, encouraging growth (6 ways), organismic valuation process, emergence of self, conditions of worth, unconditional/conditional positive regard, internal compulsions, congruence, fully functioning individual, autonomy/control casuality orientations, growth-/validation-seeking, eudaimonic well-being
On idea relateable to Billy Elliot is Freud's idea of id and ego. Billy was born with id and it tries to get whatever it wants. In this case it would be to dance. Then as he got older his ego developed to keep him from defining norms. He was a boxer to partially satisfy his need for wanting to dance. In the beginning we see him dancing with a punching bag at the end of his boxing class, but that is not the same as dancing. Billy sees the dance class next to him and decides to join. He is hesitant to go back the next day because he knows it is not normal for a boy to be in dance and his ego is telling him not to. Well, he goes back again and again due to the need of id but ego is making sure he hides it form everyone. Soon Billy's father catches him and ruins everything. He knows his father is not accepting of ballet, nor is his brother, but it is what Billy loves so he satisfies id and keeps dancing. Finally Billy's dad catches him in the building where they practice wrestling and Billy has had enough. Id just jumps out and completely fulfills his desire to dance, right in front of his dad. After this they become accepting of Billy going to ballet so id can be happy dancing and ego is not worried about trying to be in the norms anymore because Billy dancing is acceptable now.
This movie shows also shows how Billy began satisfying his needs. In the beginning of the movie Billy, for the time being, had his physiological needs of food and shelter. Although, there was a possibility food would run out since his dad and brother were on strike. He had safety needs like a house, but then we get to the need of love and belongingness and he is lacking. His mother had died, and his father and brother didn't accept him because he was in dance. He had exception from his grandmother and friend across the street but really wanted to be accepted by his brother and father. Billy esteem need was not fully met because he was a dancer and that was not normal at all and the rest of the men in his town looked down upon him for dancing. and since he did not have all his deficiency needs met Billy was in a state of deprivation and couldn't satisfy his growth need of self actualization. In the middle-end of the movie Billy's father gets his job back so money is not a problem and his physiological need is met, he has a home to keep him safe and family to protect him so his safety and security need is met. It really shows how accepting his father has become when they are at his mothers grave and then they end up falling over, laughing, and laying on the ground together. The acceptance of his father as well as his brother and the rest of the town satisfy his need for loving and belongingness need, and since the town is supportive of Billy's decision to dance he has his esteem. At the end of the movie when Billy gets accepted into dance school, they show him several years performing for a crowd of people with his brother, father, and friend there to watch. That is the point when it really displays ho Billy has satisfied his growth need and has self actualized.
Billy had a strong implicit motivation when it came to dancing. He didn't really know why he wanted to dance because none of the other boys did but he knew he wanted to do it. I think his implicit motivation for dance is showed in the beginning of the movie when he plays his brother record and is jumping up and down dancing and also when he is playing the piano at his house. He gets and internal feeling that he desires and dancing is the only way he achieves that feeling.
Billy's unconscious was very evident in throughout the movie. He love to dance and would dance when ever and where ever he could. Billy didn't know why he loved to dance he just knew he did. At the end of the movie Billy was asked what it felt like to dance and since his dancing motivation was unconscious his initial response was "I dont know." After Billy had throguh about what it felt like to dance for a while I think he finally brought into consciousness why he like to dance so much and how it really made him feel. It also help his father understand why Billy went through everything just to do something as silly as ballet.
Terms: Unconscious, implicit motivation, id and ego, Hierarchy of needs, physiological needs, safety and social needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, self actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs,
Billy is a great example of the holism theory. He loves dancing and strives to become better at it despite the opposition from his family. Holism looks at the whole person and the humanistic perspective stresses the importance of personal growth and self realization, and not relying on the views and expectations of others. Billy’s father and brother want him to be a boxer or wrestle but instead he focuses on what he loves and sticks with it. When he was accepted to go to dance school he was fulfilling his self-actualization and autonomy by lessening his dependence on his family and friends. He went away to school in another town where he didn’t know anybody and had no one to really rely on. He showed great openness when he stuck with dancing even though he father told him numerous times he can no longer dance. He chose to follow his own dreams and it took courage to continue it. When Billy was younger he relied on his family for food, shelter, and love. Just as Maslow’s hierarchy states, as we get older those needs progress to higher levels in the hierarchy such as esteem and self-actualization needs. He no longer needed to rely on his family to fulfill his basic needs.
Billy’s curiosity for dance started one day after boxing practice when he was watching the girls dance class. Inherently he knew that is what he wanted to do. Billy fulfilled his actualizing tendency by wanting to belong to that social group increase his learning.
Billy’s father and brother were struggling through the coal mine strike and his father more importantly felt a loss in drive with what to do with himself to support his family as well as losing his sense of self worth. When he realized how much Billy loved to dance and that he even had a chance to go out of town for school, his father set a goal to pay for it himself. He even sold his deceased wife’s jewelry to help pay for it. Before reducing himself to sell the jewelry he chose to deny his beliefs, incongruence, and start back at his job. While Billy was a growth seeking individual by pursuing his dreams to better himself with positive outcomes by dancing, his father on the other hand is a validation seeking individual. He measures his self worth by getting approval by others, especially those on the strike with him and his son.
Billy’s self-definition was tested when he chose to take up dance classes instead of boxing. Being male in that time period as well as living with two dominant males he still never once questioned his motives. His father and brother constantly criticized him for dancing saying it was for girls. They had a certain image of how each gender role was supposed to act as well as interests each sex should have. They tried to make goals for Billy according to his gender but didn’t take into account what it was he truly wanted to do.
ME terms: holism, humanistic perspective, self realization, self actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of needs, esteem needs, actualizing tendency, self worth, drive, goal setting, incongruence, validation seeking, growth seeking, self-definition
Billy is a great example of the holism theory. He loves dancing and strives to become better at it despite the opposition from his family. Holism looks at the whole person and the humanistic perspective stresses the importance of personal growth and self realization, and not relying on the views and expectations of others. Billy’s father and brother want him to be a boxer or wrestle but instead he focuses on what he loves and sticks with it. When he was accepted to go to dance school he was fulfilling his self-actualization and autonomy by lessening his dependence on his family and friends. He went away to school in another town where he didn’t know anybody and had no one to really rely on. He showed great openness when he stuck with dancing even though he father told him numerous times he can no longer dance. He chose to follow his own dreams and it took courage to continue it. When Billy was younger he relied on his family for food, shelter, and love. Just as Maslow’s hierarchy states, as we get older those needs progress to higher levels in the hierarchy such as esteem and self-actualization needs. He no longer needed to rely on his family to fulfill his basic needs.
Billy’s curiosity for dance started one day after boxing practice when he was watching the girls dance class. Inherently he knew that is what he wanted to do. Billy fulfilled his actualizing tendency by wanting to belong to that social group increase his learning.
Billy’s father and brother were struggling through the coal mine strike and his father more importantly felt a loss in drive with what to do with himself to support his family as well as losing his sense of self worth. When he realized how much Billy loved to dance and that he even had a chance to go out of town for school, his father set a goal to pay for it himself. He even sold his deceased wife’s jewelry to help pay for it. Before reducing himself to sell the jewelry he chose to deny his beliefs, incongruence, and start back at his job. While Billy was a growth seeking individual by pursuing his dreams to better himself with positive outcomes by dancing, his father on the other hand is a validation seeking individual. He measures his self worth by getting approval by others, especially those on the strike with him and his son.
Billy’s self-definition was tested when he chose to take up dance classes instead of boxing. Being male in that time period as well as living with two dominant males he still never once questioned his motives. His father and brother constantly criticized him for dancing saying it was for girls. They had a certain image of how each gender role was supposed to act as well as interests each sex should have. They tried to make goals for Billy according to his gender but didn’t take into account what it was he truly wanted to do.
ME terms: holism, humanistic perspective, self realization, self actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of needs, actualizing tendency, self worth, drive, goal setting, incongruence, validation seeking, growth seeking, self-definition