I chose to analyze Doctor Meredith Grey, from the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith is an emotionally complex individual with a complicated history and personal life, which makes her a challenge to analyze. I chose to analyze Meredith Grey because she is a character with many sides to her and exemplifies many of the various psychological concepts we have learned over this semester of Developmental Psych.
Grey’s Anatomy is a television show that follows a group of surgical interns as they complete their internship and residency at Seattle Grace Hospital, as they gradually turn into seasoned doctors with the help of their mentors, who are referred to as residents and attendings. The show is set from Meredith’s point of view, but it also follows many other characters inside and outside of the hospital.
I am not sure that I would be able to assess Meredith’s behavior throughout the entire show, as it is a program filled with dramatic events, tragedies, and excitement, as it is on its eleventh season. To keep my analysis somewhat brief, I am going to focus Meredith’s events up through season four, when she begins seeing a therapist to attempt to work through her emotional issues.
Meredith deals with many traumatic events within the first few seasons of the show. She finds out the man she is dating is married and left his wife to start over, she nearly dies due to a patient who comes into the hospital with unexploded ammunition in a body cavity, she deals with her mother having severe Alzheimer’s disease, getting admitted into Seattle Grace, and becoming lucid for a couple hours only to tell Meredith that she is disappointed to find out that she is no more than ordinary. She also finds out that her mother had an affair with her the chief of surgery, her boss, and the day after her mother becomes lucid she nearly dies from drowning while trying to save a patient at a ferry boat accident, and
There are many traumatic events that happen to Meredith that lead up to her decision to see a therapist. During the first three seasons, Meredith begins a romantic relationship with an attending neurosurgeon, Derek Shepherd, she then finds out that Derek is married and has left his wife because she cheated on him and decided to start over in Seattle. Derek’s wife decides to come to Seattle Grace Hospital to try to get Derek back and Derek calls things off with Meredith to attempt to work things out with her, but it unable to and eventually ends up with Meredith again. Meredith also deals with an extremely stressful surgery, where her hand ends up inside a patient who has unexploded ammunition is his body cavity. Meredith stuck her hand on the bomb when the paramedic became too scared and abruptly took her hand off. Meredith survived the incidence, but a member of the bomb squad was killed. Meredith is also struggling with the fact that her mother, a former brilliant surgeon, has severe Alzheimer’s. Meredith’s mother is admitted to the hospital, where she thinks she is still a surgeon and tries to order everyone around, and during her time there, briefly becomes lucid and gets to talk to Meredith. In this time, her mother says some very harsh words to Meredith and tells her how disappointed she is to wake up to discover she’s no more than ordinary; this leads into some background of Meredith’s childhood, spent with a mother who is too busy with surgery and a father who walked out on her.
