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Novak Flips Out

I decided to look up some psychological terms to describe this incident, since it’s obvious that Novak’s flip of the lid had nothing to do with what James Carville was saying, and everything to do with a deeply repressed guilty conscience that whispers plame, plame in the wee hours of the night.

I’m still undecided about which term is most correct; would any armchair psychologists in the audience like to make a Fristian diagnosis-by-video?

Below are my suggestions; the descriptions all come from this source.

Was it a case of transference?

During transference, people turn into a “biological time machine”. A nerve is struck when someone says or does something that reminds you of your past. This creates an “emotional time warp” that transfers your emotional past and your psychological needs into the present. In less poetic terms, a transference reaction means that you are reacting to someone in terms of what you need to see, you are afraid of or what you see when you know very little about the person. This all happens without you knowing why you feel and react the way you do.

Or projection?

Some people refer to transference as a “projection.” In this case you are projecting your own feelings, emotions or motivations into another person without realizing your reaction is really more about you than it is about the other person. In a life filled with transference, your job may be “the family reunion you are avoiding and you are forced to go to each day.” In other cases of projection, your girlfriend may remind you of all the irritating things your mother did when you were growing up. Love at first sight is usually a projection – especially if it ends in disaster and you could have seen it coming.

Perhaps this is evidence of a harmful pattern?

Transference reactions are caused by unmet emotional needs, neglect, seductions and other abuses that transpired when you were a child. In some forms of psychotherapy, a therapist will intentionally create or allow transference to form. When done properly, this helps a therapist to understand and find a connection between the patient’s past and how the patient misreads the present and may react ineffectively. Once you discover a transference pattern, you can chose to respond in terms of what is really happening instead of what happened 20 or 30 years ago. People who don’t recognize the difference between past and present can end up in the same messed–up relationships over and over

Was it a Transference Melt-Down?

Extreme forms of transference can turn into a full-blown obsession if it is not dealt with. Transference “meltdowns” can result in accidents, nightmares, fantasies, stalking someone, psychotic reactions and sometimes violence. While it does not happen frequently in therapy, it can happen a great deal in life.

ah, that sounds about right to me.

I hope that Mr. Novak receives the counseling he so desperately needs. What course of treatment would you sugggest?

7 Comments on "Novak Flips Out"

JLo:

Matt, you’re a f*cking poet, and I have nothing else to say about it right now.

08.04.05 11:36 pm

The Heretik:

I vote for melt down.

08.05.05 12:37 am

Suzy Shedd:

Very impressive research, Matt. However, I’d vote for simpler constructs like guilt, (the consciousness that one has done something wrong) or, perhaps, a combination of keeping up appearances (not wanting to be caught having done something that other, lowlier, mortals THINK is wrong) and pride (”you have no right to question me, you lowlife scum”). The most delicious possbility to contemplate is fear (if I say anything, anything at all, they’ll get me and send me down and I’ll have to see Judi Miller EVERY DAY). There is also shame (the belief that deep in one’s being, one is a scumbag). Most of the people who feel shame have no rational reason for it. In Novak’s case…..?

08.05.05 9:14 am