Schiff 182089433Resist and DefendFrom the exterior, any middle-class American family looks typically normal.Having all components of a nuclear family unit, father, mother, children, is a rare thingthese days thought. Unfortunately in the case of Evan, although he had these structures inhis life to guide him, namely his parents, they had damaging effect on him. Evan’s parents were abusive to him. Whenever there seemed to be a problem, both parents werealways quick to point a finger directly at Evan accusing him of whatever may be wrong.Evan’s parents, Mike and Karen, came down on him very hard too. They would sit downwith Evan and berate him for an hour at a time and physically hit him. Evan developed aconduct disorder that was a direct effect of the type of attachment he had with his parents.Furthermore, while Evan dealt with his parent’s abuse, he used coping strategies thatwere both adaptive and maladaptive. Evan has a poor relationship with both of his parents and uses coping strategies to combat the harms that are forced on him.Parent’s are a huge contributor to the eventual personality that their child displays.When parenting techniques are negative towards their children, Ainsworth explains that“the individual is handicapped by the lack of what might be called a secure base fromwhich to work” (Weiten, 429). Ainsworth and Harlow were two very influential psychologists who determined various patterns of attachments for infants. Their attachment patterns included, secure, anxious-ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized-disoriented. While Ainsworth and Harlow related these patterns to infants, theseattachment schemas can still be discussed as they relate to Evan’s situation.Evan was shown no love or care from his father at all. One of the most ridiculousthings that Evan’s father stood for was that men aren’t supposed to hug, and should only

Schiff 282089433shake hands (The Trouble With Evan, 1994). This is because Evan’s father pushed himaway as an eight year old kid and refused to hug him. Aside from not showing any love toEvan, Mike would often times yell at Evan and abuse him mentally. Mike lovedreferencing the fact that Evan was breaking up the already shaky relationship that Mikeand Evan’s mother, Karen, had (The Trouble With Evan, 1994). Mike would also displacesome of his own frustration on to Evan which in no way strengthened their bond asfather-figure and son. Mike had a rough day and a check he earned landed up in the wash(The Trouble With Evan, 1994). Mike accused Evan of putting the check in the wash andyelled at him to no end. This is completely unfair and surely added to the stress andtrauma that Evan was already going through with the rest of his parent’s abuse.Ultimately, if there is any attachment that is being harbored between these two, it wouldfall under the Ainsworth and Harlow categories of avoidant and anxious-ambivalent.These attachment styles stem from fear and anxiety and a feeling of defensiveness(Weiten, 428). It is understandable that Evan wouldn’t feel very secure to an adult whocontinually abused him.The relationship between Evan and his mother Karen was filled with even moreconfusion and abuse. Karen had been through a lot of psychological pain and had eventried to commit suicide. Similar to Mike, Karen also seemed to displace this enormousanxiety and stress that she accrued on to Evan. One of the worst incidents that occurred inthe documentary was when Karen accused Evan about stealing a dime from the penny jar (The Trouble With Evan, 1994). Evan was scolded, berated, criticized, and abused over stealing one dime that in actuality was never stolen, but Karen had been so paranoidabout Evan’s stealing that she counted the coins and had done so incorrectly. After a night

Schiff 382089433of complete torment, Karen brought Evan downstairs and apologized to him for miscounting the money and the successive abuse that he had to incur (The Trouble withEvan, 1994). This must have been extremely confusing for Evan after he had just beenyelled at for a long time. Karen did hug Evan and showed him minimal comfort at best, but this in no way alters the detrimental attachment that existed between this pair.Ainsworth and Harlow would again classify this type of attachment as one based on fear,anxiety, and defensiveness (Weiten, 428).In trying to deal with his parent’s abusive nature, Evan used coping strategies thatwere both adaptive to the situation and at times also maladaptive. Coping strategies takethe form of defense mechanisms which are “largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt” (Weiten, 475). Two copingstrategies that Evan used that were adaptive are identification and reaction formation.Identification is a result of “forming an imaginary or real alliance with some person or group” (Weiten, 475). Evan was apparently involved in a football league during thecourse of the documentary and this activity gave him the opportunity to use the copingstrategy of identification (The Trouble With Evan, 1994). On the field, Evan could probably have dreamed that he was a famous football player and was rid of his abusive parents. It also gave him an opportunity to exert some of his pent up anger that he musthave obviously had in a constructive way, rather than lashing out at his sister for instance.The second adaptive coping strategy that Evan used is called reaction formation, which is“behaving in ways that’s exactly the opposite of one’s true feelings” (Weiten, 475). Oneday Evan set up the dinner table and cooked his family a meal which is a tremendouslynice thing to do considering the amount of abuse he was putting up with (The Trouble