Fernandos character from a biophysical perspective

Introduction The predicaments that defines the behaviors and characters of a sixteen year old Fernando is an aftermath of a legacy left behind by a father vague of human values. Fernando finds himself in an oasis of a community bred in a background of social evils intoxicating his mind from early childhood.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Fernando’s character from a biophysical perspective specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In his quest to break out from the ‘tradition’ that is so akin to his family make- up, his mindset and choices lead him to subconsciously live the same life his people lived from generations back. This is characterized by drugs and affiliation with gangs and a negative exposure to the authorities at a very tender age. Fernando hails from a family that is quickly disintegrating into the abyss that is the societal rote in their community of drug abusers. Their lives are unpredi ctable since they are always at loggerheads with the local administration (like the police), as a result spending so much of their time serving jail terms rotting in jails. Others get embroiled in fights that are far too common in their community set-up; they are affiliated to gangs which normally sort out their differences brutally by killing the members of the factions working against them. These children hail from much disoriented backgrounds, Fernando’s father was a drug addict who had little time to guide and care for his children, he battered his wife even when he was drunk and was rather callous with his affairs. His mother, on the other hand, had to run away due to the battering and though they met on the streets, they hardly shared a lot. The result of all this is a child of Fernando’s behavior, whose attitude and perceptions about life was suicidal and the victim was himself. These children end up copying what they deem fit or ‘cool’ in the socie ty, because they do not have a strong figure to guide them. Goldstein (1995) believes that such characters have very weak social foundations and their reaction towards people is rather cold. They have a tendency to always look for trouble and they feel good about it. They hardly think about the future, they live under the notion that today they are alive but tomorrow they will either be dead or in jail. Of all this, none of them is a big deal.Advertising Looking for essay on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Thought Fernando’s life, several factors have contributed to the persona he was when he was last interviewed. The social factors, cultural factors, the category they’re placed on in society by society itself and community factors play a major role. Fernando’s characters all the way from infantile have been borrowing traits from the people around him and as a result have grown solidly into the extreme it is. His recognition of the self has diminished to the extent that he does not value his life anymore, though he has no weaknesses, his abilities are rarely used in other helpful activities like playing or learning. Berzoff and Hertz (2008) explains that Self recognition portrays to them an idea of what people see and when they look at them, in this case this stems from infancy whereby child neglect contributes to a high percentage the feeling of worthlessness. They eventually conclude that they are bad and do so little to change this perception. Self reflection is evident in all the age groups with the three to five year old’, center of attention being much of physical aspects like the picture he portrays on the outside, his belongings and his abilities. When this child grows towards attaining puberty, his sense of the self develops too, enabling him to communicate his thoughts more carefully through the word of mouth and easily from what he understands. They comb ine their own feelings and individuality by means of re-combining their past experiences to the present and other new occurrences’ as they happen in their lives. This maybe in the form of new ethical values learnt their sexual direction, their political belief systems and their cultural identity. Family dynamics on the impact of behavior Fernando had an insecure relationship with the parents. The mother left him at a tender age and never bothered checking on them again. They only met in the streets and hardly shared anything. His father, being the alcoholic had no time for his children and family, and he never enforced the ideals he preached to his children like not taking alcohol. The children themselves acknowledge that had they been given direction in life, they would be different from what they had ended up like. The absentee parents, as a result of this ended up having children that could not even trust them, leave alone non family members. They are not emotive when sepa rated from the parents and neither do they fancy interaction with their parents.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Fernando’s character from a biophysical perspective specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More They are cold towards them and this is how they are brought up from their tender ages. In the evolution of their mindsets, from the core consciousness to the secondary consciousness, the parents played a very minor role in bringing up their children. The children learnt for themselves the many aspects that they had to grapple with in their infancy. The environment the children are exposed to or grow within greatly affects the structure of the brain, defining the character of the individual that comes out eventually. Middle childhood put much focus on the components that make up the mind i.e. id, ego and superego. According to Erickson, Fernando is at a level of self identity as he struggles to break from the ca ucus of emotional dependency. He battles with identity diffusion trying to make his own decisions which he feels are genuine. The environment either stifles or promotes the structure and functionalities in an infant’s brain. The early relationship a child has with its parents goes a long to affect the level, depth and quality of his other relationships when he grows. This reasoning by Berzoff and Hertz (2008) is attributed to the fact that his connection to the parents has a direct influence on the maturity of his right brain and a set of connections that match data to the environment. The mothers touch to the baby at the tender age also shapes the child’s dendrite growth. Lack of these or exposure to long distressing states alters the organization exposing this child to susceptibility. The result is a child with a detached mental state who doesn’t feel guilty when on the wrong; a child who feels everything must go his way and is very irrational. This incident h appened on Fernando’s life when he was very young, never exposed or had very little exposure to a mother’s love, he was given very little attention and as a result he ended up being rude even to his tutors. This strengthened his resolve about the street; nobody would tell him if anything was going awry on his part. Freudian theory sheds light to the woes bedeviling Fernando by trying to comprehend the developmental stages through his (Fernando) journey of life. From early childhood to the mid adolescent age Fernando’s life has been patchy embedded in an environment with uncouth behavior that portrays a community less sensitive to values.Advertising Looking for essay on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Freud integrates the structure of the brain (Id, Ego, and Superego) and the surrounding environment through developmental stages to insight the persona in Fernando. There is a clear relationship between the behavior and the environment. Freud purports that a person’s character is a product of classical Freudian theory, object relations, ego psychology, self psychology and learning theory. Fernando’s behaviors are an aftermath of self psychology which stems from disintegrated family devoid of cohesiveness. He is exhibiting phallic stage according to Mehler portraying psychological self separation-individualization fearing loss of the object. Fernando, like any other child born from this environment is susceptible to behaving the way he does since the environment treats him cruelly prompting him to form defensive as well as survival tactics. Efforts to rehabilitate him are bound to be futile since the characters are embedded deep in his genes. The death of his grandmothe r dealt him a big blow too. She was among the people he was closest to and her passing away meant he had been snatched a companion, a friend. To the infants, passing away of somebody close to them has a big effect to their development; they take long to understand though they eventually do. They try to seek their own explanation of events on why things happened the way they did. They try to link their death to something big that happened around the time the funeral occurred. To the young infants mind that is what caused the ‘big sleep’, as they often call it. In Fernando’s case this is evident through the mourning process where he blames himself for hitting his grandmother. This happened sometime before she died when she was trying to defend her grandmother against his uncle and hit her accidentally. He believes he is the cause of her death and pleads vehemently for forgiveness from her. Fernando’s case highlights the plight of such children; they â€Å"a lways have one person they are really passionate about and when he or she passes on they have a tendency to blame themselves for all that happened to the deceased†(Lee, 2001). The effects of social, culture, class, ethnic and community factors Fernando has issues with his self esteem and his ego. He quickly dismisses education claiming he was a quick learner and school became boring to him. He compares his being in school to being out there in the complexity of the drug network ring making money. He admits that that is time he would be wasting and that time would be better spent making money out here. He could earn money, about $ 700 per week legitimately distributing bread around town but has resorted to selling drugs. The ego defenses at play in Fernando’s life whenever he is encountered show a person who is weak and is hiding from the reality. He lives in utter denial of his real state and is motivated by the gang to do whatever he does. They give him a sense of â₠¬Å"brotherliness making him feel at home even though he knows life being a member in the gang is as temporary as the gang itself. They fight against each other, injuring each other sometimes even killing each other in gang wars† (Aronson and Lesser, 2011). They have little regard for the law and have developed a carefree attitude toward life. All this happens despite the fact that he knows there’s a life outside this ring. He hides in the ideologies of the group, living a high life; stealing cars even police cars, handling illegal weapons and consuming drugs. He escaped prison after only serving four months in jail instead of the eighteen he had been sentenced to. Hogan (2005) believes that Fernando hides in the present, and does feel comfortable being questioned about what tomorrow holds. He is fully aware about the repercussions of his actions yet he doesn’t care. Fernando’s projection affects others, his idea about being naughty and awoke in him need to be photographed with drugs. This he had wished it be made public, but then it was meant to smear the image of the police’ department. Fernando’s characters have roots in the environment which encompasses the social and cultural practices as well as class and ethnicity. Fernando hails from a community that embraces domestic violence which is the norm of the society. This, together with the lower social status of the community propels the way men behave the way they do. They yearn for better life out of bondage of poverty by seeking solace in a seemingly lucrative trade of drug peddling. As a result, they find themselves in unfamiliar circumstances that abuses drugs. In the centre of shaping the behaviors of a person, which happens in the early childhood of brain development, are the genetic influences. This together with the environment refine, reorganize as well as form neural connections responsible for future behaviors of an individual. The structure of the brain is composed of sub-cortical and cortical limp systems. The former is responsible for instinctive reflexes while the later deliberates reflexes to the environment. Their responses are a consequence of genetic makeup and environment. Fernando’s dissociation from the real life repercussions of his actions depict a life of a child who would have grown up straight had he been given a chance to. For him to conduct his drug business, he has had to shove away the feelings of guilt that plague him. According to Simonsson (2004), his motivation is that somehow he needs to survive; he needs to live his life and achieve all that he ever dreamt and aspired to be in life. He is fully aware that what he does is wrong and says he will opt out only after fulfilling his dreams and ambitions. Conclusion Fernando is just one boy lost in the quest to discover his true abilities. He has been so caught up in the rotation that is life at a tender age. His personal history and that of his family do mak e matters even worse. He has no proud moment in his life unless it is derived from his many escapades in life which are dangerous. Woodhead, and Faulkner (2000) states that the family history dates back to generations of drugs and disoriented families, and whenever he flashes back the only thing he gets is the reminder that he will die like his father, in jail He shudders at the thought of killing himself but with the drugs he is consuming and the age he is at, the idea is not farfetched. He is so scared about the future that he rarely devotes time to think and plan about it. He assumes that in a span of five years ahead of him, he would be either dead or in jail. This is usually the street assumption of the people and children living this kind of life. They take corrections negatively and they react fast to issues, sometimes overreacting. Hatred and war defines their world, and because they rarely went to school, they do not attach so much emphasis on education. The result is a chi ld with misplaced priorities and wrong ideas about what life is composed of, a child who lives by the gun and doesn’t think twice before pulling the trigger. This is what society entails, though if handled well and given all the love and attention at infantry, the child grows up to be a responsible member of the society who values good ideals. These children would also grow up with the family mindset and would strive to bring up upright citizens by giving them proper education, catering for their health and being there to support them when they need them. Children are good at emulating what their parents do, and if anything parents should strive to bring out the best in their children by living a positive and healthy life. References Aronson, J. Lesser, P. (2011) Human behavior and the social environment theory practice. Washington. Washington press. Berzoff, J., Hertz, P. (2008). Inside out and outside in: Psychodynamic clinical theory and psychopathology in contemporary multicultural contexts (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: New York University Press. Goldstein, E. (1995). Ego psychology and social work practice. New York: The Free Press Hogan, D. (2005). Researching ‘the child’ in developmental psychology: Researching Children’s Experience. Approaches and Methods. London: Sage Publications. Lee, N. (2001). Childhood and Society. Growing up in an age of uncertainty Maidenhed: Open University Press. Simonsson, M. (2004). Picture Books in Preschool – an Interactional Perspective. Linkoping Studies in Arts and Science. New York, NY. Bartsford Printing press. Woodhead, M. Faulkner, D. (2000). ‘Subjects, objects or participants? Dilemmas of psychological research with children’.London: Falmer Press. This essay on Fernando’s character from a biophysical perspective was written and submitted by user Nevaeh Bass to help you with your own studies. 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