Good Will Hunting is a movie about a young man named Will Hunting. Will lives his life in Boston, most of the time hanging out with his friends while working low-end jobs. However, it is soon apparent that Will is extremely smart despite his habitual bad behavior. One day after a fight Will has with some guys and the police, he meets Skylar and gets her number. However, since Will hit a cop he was sentenced to jail with little hope getting out until Gerald came in to help him. Gerald, a famous Math teacher, discovered that Will solved a difficult math problem and wanted to work with Will on math, granted if he would also meet up with a therapist. Unfortunately, Will runs Gerald’s therapists out, leaving Gerald no other choice but to seek help from his old college friend, Sean. Agreeing to help out, Sean meets with Will and approaches him in very different way without backing down from him. The two continue to meet with each other, digging deeper in Will’s heart, while Will continues to date with Skylar. However, one day Skylar ask Will to come to California with him, which upsets him and eventually leaving the room while saying “I don’t love you”. Things continue to become rocky for Will when he burns a math paper while meeting with Gerald, gets kicked out of room by Sean, and was told by his best friend that Will is wasting his time on petty jobs and not using his God-given talents. Eventually, Sean manages to break into Will, telling him that despite all the bad things that happened to him that they were not his fault. In the end, although Will accepts a new, well-paid job, he quits it and takes his new car to find Skylar in California.
An approach I that was very successful was when Sean and Will went to a park and Sean was direct about Wills problems. When they first met, Sean asked lots of small questions to Will in order to get to know him more. It would probably not have been effective if Sean immediately spoke directly about Will’s problems since he doesn’t know anything about Will yet. Being direct immediately would have also pushed Will away and their relationship would have been ruined before it even started. After meeting with Will in their first meeting, Sean knew enough about Will and some of his problems to directly approach him about his problems. Being direct and blunt in this way is effective because it allows the other person to come face to face with their problems, which has to happen at some point of time in order to overcome it.
An approach I that was unsuccessful was kicking Will out of the room during a session. During the movie, after Will finished speaking, Sean asked if he had a soul mate and Will didn’t answer directly. Sean soon asks what does Will really want to do and Will lied saying he wanted to become a shepherd. Upset by Will’s answers, Sean gets up and tells Will to get out. Although Will refuses to go, Sean complains that Will is not answering his questions and is wasting his time, thus wanting Will to get out. I don’t think this was very successful because for a couple of reasons: 1, getting kicked out can make someone feel bad and the fact that Will said “I thought we were friends” makes this situation even worse; and 2, it makes the mentee feel alone and abandoned.
As a mentor, what I would do first is find out what the student like or his/her hobbies. Everyone has something in life that they really like. These things give us pleasure and we would talk for hours about them. People are more open to talk about things they like oppose from things they do not like. Affirming and acknowledging these things allows the person to trust others more and thus become more open. In the movie, Sean mentions to his class that trust and feeling safe is extremely important in a mentor relationship and that without it there is no point in being in one. One issue I would like to address is his relationships. In the movie, most of the sessions between Will and Sean were about relationships with the women in their lives. Will’s relationship with Skylar allowed Sean to further his relationship with Will and gain his trust. What inspired change in Will once when Sean endlessly told him “it is not your fault” until the point where he broke down crying. From there, Will pursued for a better job but then at the end drives out of Boston to find Skylar in California.
When it comes to self-awareness, Sean knew himself pretty well. He is aware of how much his wife influenced him and meant to him. Also, he is mentioned of the pain he has inside because of his wife’s death and this is also being self-aware. For Will, he is quite unaware about himself. Will acknowledged Sean’s thought, later on in the movie, that he has a fear of abandonment and attachment disorder. However, he was quite unaware about this throughout the movie. When he mentioned to Sean that he doesn’t want to ruin the perfect moment he has with Skylar now, it was obvious that he was scared that the relationship wouldn’t go well. In another scene, Skylar ask what is Will afraid of but he doesn’t answer the questions while becoming mad and out of control, not realizing (or accepting) the fact that he was scared that she might ditch him because of how he was treated by his foster families.
In a scene where Will displayed effective communications skills is when Will and Sean were talking about Sean’s wife and baseball. Already Sean spoke of his wife, especially in such a strong way that Will asked when did Sean knew she was the right person. Sean answered that he knew on the day of the game six in the World Series baseball game and spoke vividly about the game as well as the first time he met his future wife, baseball and women that Will had an interest in. In an journal article, Academic Mentoring: Enhancing the Use of Scarce Resources, Pamela quotes that “They [mentees] must value the time and experience of the mentor, listen carefully, ask good questions and always be willing to expand their potential (as cited in Rylatt, 1994: 237). Although Will didn’t exactly show an willingness to expand his potential, he values his time with Sean, listens carefully, and asks good questions, as seen in this scene.
One ethical dilemma in the movie was the first session between Sean and Will. When Will said that Sean might have married the wrong woman from looking at Sean’s picture, Sean rebukes him and tells him to watch it. However, Will continues to push Sean’s button by speaking negatively about his wife. Here, Sean could’ve asked for Will to stop speaking about and say why. However, because of who Will is, he might have kept on speaking about her. The other choice Sean had was what he did in the movie, grab Will by the neck and threaten him if he ever spoke about his wife negatively again. This could’ve caused a fight and/or end their relationship on the spot. However and fortunately, they continued to meet.
Another ethical dilemma in the movie was when Sean and Gerald met with each other at a bar to talk about Will. Gerald realizes that everything is going well but he asks Sean if they talked about his future yet. Sean says they are still exploring his past, at this Gerald responds that since people are calling him to have Will work for them he wants him to talk about the future. Sean says that he doesn’t believe Will is ready for that yet. At this point, Gerald could’ve followed Sean’s plan and let him take care of Sean. However, Will could lose his chance of getting hired and/or might be confused to do something that doesn’t exactly uses his brain. Or, Gerald could force Sean to turn his strategies toward the future and help Will focus on the job offers or similar opportunities. However, this can backfire and Will will never understand his inner problems.
There are a couple of things I can take away from the film. First, sometimes or at some point, you need to be direct with your mentee and tell them the straight facts regarding their problems. To type of approached was done by Sean and although Will didn’t seem to change from it, undoubtedly what Sean said must had been on Will’s mind. If people never know the truth or the straight facts, then they will never find a solution to their problems.
Second, as Sean mentioned in his class during the movie, you must gain trust from your mentee and they must feel safe. The relationship cannot grow nor can the mentor do anything if he is not trusted. No matter how much the mentee shares with the mentor, without trust the mentor will be unable to get to the core of his mentee and his problems.
1.Mathews, P. (2003). Academic mentoring: Enhancing the use of scarce resources. Educational Management & Administration, 31(3), 313-334. doi:10.1177/0263211X03031003007
