Psychological analysis of the movie The Father

Content

• Synopsis of the film
• Why do we want to mention this film?
• Dementia: first difficulties of the main caregiver
• Information concealment to the close environment
• Make a decision about the future: guilt

Synopsis of the film

"The Father" tells the story of An elderly man who faces a degenerative process, we talk about a dementia, And how daily life develops, from the point of view of his daughter Anne, with whom. We observe the difficulties that this situation presents from Anne's eyes and his father.

Why do we want to mention this film?

We are accustomed to hearing about dementia in quantity of occasions, the typical memory failures, disorientation, alterations in the behaviors of those affected ... and we put ourselves in their place and think “what a shame, blissful diseases, how the head of one can get to those things ". But, many times, we do not look at everything behind a person with a dementia; We are talking about the main caregivers of these people.

This film, brings us closer, in a very simple and interesting way, to the perspective of the caregiver who lives and is responsible for supervising the day's day to day. In this case, it would be our protagonist "Anne".

Dementia: first difficulties of the main caregiver

From the first moment, Anne allows us to see the other face of the currency that can exist with this type of patient, And it is that these diseases, despite having characteristics, say, common, in most people, they manifest differently in each case.

We observe how the beginning of the existence of alarm signals begins to worry Anne. But it's not just that, Anne begins to feel overwhelmed when trying to maintain a balance between her working and personal life and care for her father. As an alternative, Anne resorts to something very common and necessary in these cases such as the search for another person who can help them during the day, but, as usually happens on many occasions, Anne's father is not aware of his limitations, he rejects all external help and refuses to accept that in no one alien at home.

This generates a conflict between father and daughter that triggers feelings of hopelessness in Anne, of not knowing how to move forward, together with feeling of guilt that is very common to find in this type of caregivers. On the one hand, Anne faces the misunderstanding of her father that she needs support, which refers rather to "want to get rid of me", something very painful for Anne, who is taking care of all care. On the other hand, Anne has certain ideas that we call "irrational", very easily visible in our society, such as the Feelings of responsibility and obligation to turn to our parents, since they already did with us being little; That feeling of having to devote yourself to them, placing our needs and desires in the background.

What happens when this is done? As we see, in Anne begins to develop emotional tiredness, not seeing her continued effort rewarded, quite the opposite, receiving criticism and accusations from his father, together with the painful of seeing him deteriorate little by little.

Information concealment to the close environment

Anne avoids sharing many of the situations and feelings with her partner, because he knows that doing his partner will put him in a committed situation. Because? Because her partner will begin to see her father with other eyes, and will insist that she looks for alternatives that allow her to delegate that care, and make that decision for Anne is very complicated.

To all this, we must add that No one was born knowing how to face the appearance of a dementia in the family. Sometimes, having experienced it professionally or with another family.

It is very common for main caregivers to decide to save painful information for themselves. On the one hand, they do not want to worry the rest of relatives, and, in addition, they do not want to change that image of the person who was always the one who now suffers from the rest of the relatives. To this we must gather that, very frequently, the patient behaves in a much more hostile way with the main caregiver, giving a quite different image from the rest of people who leave said caregiver.

Make a decision about the future: guilt

As the film progresses, we can observe an evolution of the character and situation of Anne. Especially pushed by the Impotence against the rejection that his father shows before all kinds of help, and supported by his partner, Anne finally decides to find a residence for his father. That helplessness and the lack of an adequate solution to keep their father at home, lead Anne to realize that, despite the love she feels for her father, she cannot take responsibility for taking care of him in the way that your disease requires it.

It is at this point that Anne experiences a relief of the overload she has lived during the last time and her life is allowed to resume and move to Paris with her partner with her partner. However, it is evident that the relief experienced above all acts on the physical load. While it is true, that Anne has more time for her life, having made this decision leaves you with a feeling of serious guilt. His expressions almost make us feel that he feels he had failed as daughter. That kind of thought or feeling is very common and can persecute the relatives of people living in a residence throughout their lives.

The fault is closely linked to that feeling of abandonment that we mention at the beginning. We have the false conception that asking for the help of specific resources for this, such as day or residences, means giving ourselves on our part and abandoning our relative. It costs that the understanding that there comes a time when it is necessary to go to specialized professionals, to a multidisciplinary team dedicated to it, and since we are not sometimes not, even sometimes, even from a good intention, does not We are taking care of our relatives as they need at that time.

This teaches us that the caregiver's health, his quality of life and work on those thoughts and feelings deserves the same attention as the person who suffers from the degenerative disorder. Living with feelings of guilt can destroy a life, and it is essential to relieve that emotional burden on the caregiver, To learn that despite being a relative, external people or institutions they can offer better attention, without implying having failed how son, waber. It is crucial to understand that to take care of others, we have to start from a healthy starting point; If we do not take care of ourselves, we will not be able to give quality care to our relative.

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