John, in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

John, in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

John, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the husband of the narrator (Gilman, 2019). He is a young man, possibly in his mid-twenties as he is newly married and they have a young child. He is of the Caucasian race from the upper-class society based on his lifestyle choices, and he is a high-standing physician and a doctor to his wife.

History

As a child, he would spend his summer at his ancestral home, which was a colonial mansion. The house was hereditary and referred to as a haunted house owing to the queer things about the house. He grew up with his sister, Janie, who was tender, caring, and a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper. Some of the notable experiences that he may have obtained as a teenager is a rejection of superstition and interest in physical facts.

Presenting Problem

Some of the maladaptive thoughts that may cause John to per sent for therapy is the thought that he is perfect. He is a physician, and he thinks that because of his profession, he knew what was best for his wife. Some of the behaviors exhibited include being extremely practical to the extent that he dismisses the thoughts and ideas of his wife because he thought that she was ill. He was confident of what was best for him because he was a doctor. He went further by imposing his ways on her that he thought would work best in promoting her cure like resting continuously and being disconnected from normal activities because they would distract her recovery, confining her to a domestic sphere, and cutting her off from her personal activities that she loved doing like writing.

Analysis of the Problem

According to Freud (2018), people develop psychological issues due to the interactions that they have. According to him, the Id is the most primitive structure of the human mind, which establishes how people react to situations. This structure is associated with the urge to satisfy physical needs, and it operates unconsciously. It is possible that John was affected by his Id structure, and that is why he was influenced by the activities of his wife, which he deemed to be the reason why she barely recovered, yet in the real sense, he was the one being affected. The other perspective is the ego, which Freud (2018) mentions to be partly conscious and partly unconscious and is the part of a person that is pragmatic. This perspective contributed to John’s problem because as a doctor, he was conscious of the precautions that needed to be taken for a person undergoing depression, while at the same time, he was unconscious of the needs of his wife and that is why he made her state worse than it was.

Alternative Analysis of Problem

Horney proposes that neurosis result from anxieties that are a result of personal interrelationships (Quinn, 2019). Her psychoanalytic theory asserts that a person develops a certain kind of behavior owing to the interrelationships developed. In this case, John could have developed a controlling behavior where he though he knew he what was best for his wife due to the relationships he has had with his patients as well as other medical professionals. The over-protective nature he may have developed could also have been as a result of his childhood upbringing and the interactions he had with his parents because most of his summers he would spend in his ancestral home that was confined, as such, he may have thought of it as the best approach to taking care of his wife.