“Seinfeld” — the long-running sitcom billed as being about nothing — has resurfaced at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital as a psychiatrist’s teaching tool to help students identify certain disorders.
NJ.com reported that Anthony Tobia is offering medical students at the facility a “Psy-feld” class that focuses on the personalities of the show’s key characters — and that identifies their individual, accompanying mental issues.
Third- and fourth-year medical students have to watch two shows each week, and then provide an assessment that discusses the psychopathologic elements of each character.
For instance, the main character — Jerry Seinfeld — has an obsessive compulsive disorder, Mr. Tobia said, NJ.com reported. George Costanza, meanwhile, is egocentric; Kramer is schizoid; and Elaine has great difficulty forging and maintaining meaningful relationships. Newman, he says, displays “very sick” behaviors.
Seinfeld isn’t the only show Mr. Tobia uses as a teaching tool. He also teaches a class where students tweet their thoughts about potential psychiatric disorders of characters in notable films such as “Fargo,” NJ.com reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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