A psychiatry professor used American TV sitcom Seinfeld characters to identify and tackle psychiatric disorders. A group of US medical students have analyzed the mental health of each character in the sitcom and they were able to uncover a raft of problems from signs of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) to schizophrenia traits.
The homework of the students from the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey that were assigned to them consists of watching episodes of the sitcom two times a week. After so, they would dissect the character's psychopathologies in their class discussions they named, "Psy-feld".
Every Monday and Thursday, the medical students under the psychiatric rotation were assigned to watch the episodes aired every 6 p.m. on TBS. The following day, they would begin their rounds discussing what psychological disorder was portrayed by each character on the episode.
According to one of the students, Marlene Wang, George demonstrates and manifests signs of narcissism as he takes his girlfriend for granted to focus on other things.
Associate professor of psychiatry, Anthony Tobia, has explained this kind of approach in a paper published in the journal Academic Psychiatry. He told NJ News, "You have a very diverse group of personality traits that are maladaptive on the individual level. When you get these friends together the dynamic is such that it literally creates a plot: Jerry's obsessive compulsive traits combined with Kramer's schizoid traits, with Elaine's inability to forge meaningful relationships and with George being egocentric."
Tobia then added, "Newman's sense of self, his meaning in life, is to ensure that he frustrates Jerry. We actually have talked about Newman in that context and related him to Erik in The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom, while he starts out as being the tutor to the Prima Donna, actually has his life change and he is bent on revenge and that becomes who he is ... and that's Newman."
According to the 150 students who are taking Tobia's class every year, Seinfeld can now be termed as a genuine educational tool. It makes it easier for them to understand the various psychopathology disorders and how they are portrayed in real life.
Marian Wang added, "It just gives you a more solid picture of the pathology rather than just giving you words."
