Two Reciprocal Selfobject Variants in Systems of Pathological Accommodation: Illustrations From the Movies Shine and Black Swan

Abstract

The devastating descent into psychosis is powerfully illustrated in two movies, Shine and Black Swan. Here, two young prodigies, David Helfgott, the pianist, and Nina, the fictional ballerina, portray a vulnerable idealizing selfobject transference between father and son and a crippling merger/twinship selfobject transference between mother and daughter. Furthermore, the films demonstrate how the two young artists serve as potent stabilizing influences for each of their same sex parents. An intrinsic maturational need in each young artist is vividly thwarted by the bound up nexus of each parent and child dyad. After comparing and contrasting the two films and the psychotic fragmentation which evolves, we postulate what environmental supports and what selfobject experiences are necessary for the child caught in this kind of psychological configuration to survive into adulthood.