History Main / SingleIssuePsychology

** Jack gets Tracy an appointment with the staff therapist to deal with Tracy's combative attitude. Over the therapist's objection, the two start up a role-playing session with Jack playing Tracy's dad, mom, the upstairs neighbor, Tracy himself, the man his mom ran off with (in a rapid-fire stream of comical impersonations)...and within a minute Tracy is weeping and cured...of his compulsion to transgress, anyway. He's still a complete madman otherwise.

* Averted in ''Literature/TheRegenerationTrilogy'', with the characters being based on real people and being set in a mental health institution. Although traumatic events are described, they are likened to the straw which breaks the camels back and it is the long gruelling state of the war in the trenches that is the cause for the patients breakdowns. Also, lots of focus is given to the patients' history prior to the war.

* The title character of the rock opera ''Music/{{Tommy}}'' is thrown into a borderline catatonic state by the childhood trauma of watching in a mirror as his mother's second husband kills his biological father.. After years of unsuccessful attempts to treat his condition, his mother loses her temper and smashes the mirror he's staring into -- and he's ''instantly cured''.

* Much of this confusion stems from "ego psychology", the school of Freudian-inspired psychology (which made significant alterations to Freud) that flourished in TheForties and TheFifties and more or less defined HollywoodPsych and PopCulturalOsmosis for generations. Ego psychologically argued the existence of a "conflict-free" part of the mind and argued that people could adjust to society and become better people, which was fundamentally against Freud's views, which refused to pass moral and qualitative judgment on conflicts inside the ego as being necessarily good or bad, and which certainly was skeptical that "adjusting to society" was any sort of goal, especially since it implied that the society in question was good, which Freud (a Viennese Jew in a very anti-semitic Austria) certainly did not believe to be true, and which wasn't entirely true of forties and fifties' America either.

** A [[ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX Punisher one-shot story]] complicates this. Most people believe everything Frank Castle does is due to his family's death, while journalists, authors, psychologists and other researchers look into his history and pin it on Vietnam. In actuality, The Punisher didn't spring from any one event, his issues built cumulatively and not just from traumatic events either. Reading "The Tyger" in a poetry group inspired a [[NightmareFetishist fascination]] with the greatest killers in the animal kingdom.
** ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'''s obsession with being a superhero stems entirely from his guilt over letting a robber get away who wound up killing his father-figure Uncle Ben. He consistently reminds himself that ''the one time'' he ignored his "responsibility", it cost him his father figure, and he resolves to use his powers to help others even if it costs him socially. More realistically than Batman, the comics and the live-action films repeatedly show that this by itself doesn't entirely transform Peter overnight since he can't feasibly devote himself full-time to being a superhero and that he often has to negotiate different parts of his social and professional duties, often trapped in a [[ConflictingLoyalty Cornelian dilemma.]]

* Comic book supervillains, especially the really popular ones are a rich source of in-universe and out-universe debate on their motivations. The actual answers (PopularityPower, JokerImmunity) are obvious but much of the work is to create that illusion of consistency:
** ComicBook/DoctorDoom's motivation for his hatred for Reed Richards stems from the fact that he ignored Reed's warnings about an experiment, said experiment backfired and gave him a scar and got him expelled. Said scar is the reason why he wears the mask and armour look. In Creator/JackKirby's views, the scar is actually a thin cut that Doom exaggerates out of proportion, but Creator/JohnByrne argues that the scar may have been thin but Doom overcompensated by putting a hot iron forged mask on his face truly twisting his features. Of course, the true reason for the rivalry between these two intellectual rivals is made more complex and entangled as time goes on.

** Creator/AlanMoore's ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' invented the proverbial "one bad day" concept, where the Joker tries to prove that a single instance of TraumaCongaLine can drive anyone insane, demonstrating it with the psychological and physical torture of Commissioner Gordon. It doesn't work on Gordon who despite being traumatized insists that Batman bring him to justice by-the-book. Psychologically speaking, Joker's literal approach i.e. spelling out exactly why he is doing and the purpose he wants to achieve on his victim is not conducive to creating the effect he wants and hence it's fairly easy for Gordon to resist. At the end of the story Batman tells Joker that his "one bad day" theory is bunk, that Joker is mentally ill, and while something bad may or may not have happened to him, Joker still has agency and culpability to try and cure himself. Joker briefly realizes this and decides that [[IgnoredEpiphany he won't get better after all]], and Batman himself laments that not only will Joker turn down his offer of help, but that he himself won't kill Joker for the greater good since he doesn't believe himself to be sane to handle the responsibility of killing someone on his conscience. This part of Joker's characterization recurs in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', but the Joker does it to [[spoiler:Harvey Dent]] this time, and [[spoiler:it works, resulting in Two-Face, mostly because Joker disguises it better, comes to Dent when he is alone and bitter with his co-workers and by use of the coin flip, {{gaslight|ing}}s Harvey into thinking that it is his decision]].

* Creator/AlanMoore (of ''The Killing Joke'', above) actually dislikes this trope or more precisely the way this trope is applied in comics to merely motivate and explain character actions and plot, which in his view makes the characters automatons who are reducible to their neuroses, and therefore not capable of agency and change and he sought to avert this as much as possible in his superhero fiction:

** He averts this most notably in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' which initially had superhero stock characters with, on the surface, fairly superficial traits and motivations, but the comics gradually explore their inner life and bring to light hidden parts of their past and in doing so reveals that none of them are truly consistent, not even to their chosen identities and sense of being and all of them are capable of change: [[spoiler:TheCynic Comedian breaks down in tears and dies a lonely old man regretting some of his bad actions, Dr. Manhattan who has grown aloof from humanity gives the HumansAreSpecial Aesop, Rorschach poses as a tough guy but dies in tears.]]

Human psychology involves many moving parts. Of these parts, the actual "issues" are merely one of them. Whether one has multiple issues -- psychological, some biological, some cognitive, and some related to experiences and memories -- or singular issues -- these issues, by themselves, are not always determinants or agents of human behavior. It very much depends on the patient. Whether these "issues" are problems is also not clear, since sometimes MiseryBuildsCharacter and psychological neurosis at times manifests as a coping mechanism to difficulties in a society, and merely adjusting to society without taking into account what the values of that society are and whether it's worth adjusting to, makes psychological treatment very difficult and almost always a person-to-person situation.

Overcoming psychological problems takes lots of time, effort, and sometimes medication. While finding the source of the problem is important to helping a mentally ill patient, it is only part of the process, seeing as it simply allows the psychiatrist to get an understanding of just what ''is'' wrong. Once the source of the problem is found and they understand how the mind has been affected by whatever causes, it makes it easier to work out the proper methods and/or medication necessary to help the patient overcome it. And even then patients often regress, or rather they inevitably do regress since where fiction allows the illusion of an ending where a character surmounts a problem and achieves permanent CharacterDevelopment, in real-life, as UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud pointed out memorably, every part of human consciousness rests side-by-side at all times, and while people do change and grow, they never entirely sever continuity with who they once were. There is much repetition, much regression to earlier habits that people believed they had kicked apart. And the frequency with which, and the reasons why people repeat or regress often, and whether they are self-aware about these occurrences, often says more about the character and individual than their actual issues ever do.

In fiction, to serve the demands of narrative, i.e. telling a complete story with a beginning-middle-end and having CharacterDevelopment, these things are flattened out. Psychological therapy and its tropes mirror narrative in many ways, it involves a plot to find some mystery, to tie together disparate parts into a coherent whole. So this feeds into storytelling easily, as well as creating story-arc and character-arc, it's a handy way of creating a distinct ensemble that [[RuleOfPerception sticks out to readers]], simply give different characters different issues and have them grow and change by identifying and then overcoming those problems. In story terms, finding out the dark secret of the past, serves as the MacGuffin, what it is specifically, is not important to the plot, but finding it out is the goal to be attained. Used this schematically, single-issue-psychology comes off as especially trivial. It's much easier when all a person's problems stem from a single traumatic incident, and [[EpiphanyTherapy working through that single incident will instantly cure them]], so fiction tends to represent character psychology in this way, especially genre fiction where much of the story is about an external plot and not character. In a plot, using such a trope explains the character to the audience, allows the latter to empathize with the main character, and likewise the action of the plot becomes emotionally resonant since audiences are aware of how it directly affects the character in his inner being. Realistic drama, character studies, and serious fiction will likely avert or complicate this; whereas {{Deconstruction}}-oriented stories will heavily [[SubvertedTrope subvert]] and at times mock this concept.

Remember, Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, as it serves a purposes in condensing a character's personality for the sake of run time and comprehensibility. If psychological healing were played with 100% complexity, certain mediums couldn't manage to deliver it in time. Movies, for example, have time limits of about 2-3 hours maximum, and it would be impossible to cram that much detail into the story without risking a KudzuPlot or the EightDeadlyWords. Likewise, having a single issue by itself does not mean that a character is one-dimensional, if a story uses a single issue as a means and not an end, it's on solid ground. Going too far in the other direction, i.e. giving the character multiple issues risks beggaring disbelief in the audience that an individual with that much baggage could actually be functional, and simply making everything about a character an "issue" is just as trivializing and misapplying psychology as single-issues can be at their most banal.

* In the ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11108496/1/The-Bitter-End The Bitter End]]'', Akane's rage disorder is depicted as stemming from [[spoiler:Akane's "inability" to fight off Death and save her mother. (Note that Akane was barely older than a toddler when her mother died)]]. An obsession exacerbated by Ranma's seeming ability to overcome any opponent.
** Not quite, they list that as the starting point to her issues, which were built upon by [[spoiler:throwing herself into martial arts to make herself stronger (and yet never keeping up with Ranma later), her father emotionally abandoning all his daughters, Kuno's organized attacks souring her on men in general, and everyone supporting her unhealthy abuse of Ranma, who she ends up irrationally seeing as a trigger for her anger issues after thinking he tricked her into thinking he was female.]]
*** [[spoiler:It's more than that; Rage disorder, a chemical imbalance that can be as genetic as it is psychological, so maybe she can't help it, which explains why she just gets angrier after the story forces her to confront her issues and false assumptions that only hurt everyone, plus the fact she refuses to get treatment.]]
** Ranma also averts this, his issues stem from [[spoiler:the systematic abuse from his father giving him a strict set of what a man should be, and his own morals and honor that his immoral parent didn't stamp out(probably since his wife would kill him and it makes Ranma easier to control), but more specifically in the fanfic, it comes from everyone blaming his foot in mouth comments for Akane's anger, leading even him to blame himself, no matter how far he goes to avoid angering her. Combined with how much he actually loves her, the fact that defending himself, which he is quite capable of, only makes her look at him with hate that he finds worse than the injuries, this all leads to him becoming highly submissive, depressed, and unemotional as he feels that all of it is his fault for failing the one he loves, and thinking of himself as a failure as a man for all of this coming from a woman on top of the more emotional failings.]]

* Subverted in ''Series/RedDwarf''. We meet Ace Rimmer, a parallel universe's version of Arnold Rimmer. Ace lives up to [[TheAce his name]], while our Rimmer is a cowardly, neurotic, bullying, officious, psychological train wreck. We learn that the [[ForWantOfANail difference between them]] is that one Rimmer undeservingly passed a grade in school, while the other was held back. The subversion is that it's the loser-Rimmer who got the lucky break; Ace got left down a year and learned to stand up for himself as a result. Rimmer's the mess he is today for ''lack'' of a single traumatic event.

* 'Film/CitizenKane'' has a DrivingQuestion about "Rosebud" and what it means. The revelation that ItWasHisSled and that it symbolizes his lost childhood reveals that Kane at the end of his life, and perhaps for most of his life, never got over his separation from his mother and his happy childhood, that being raised by his bank led to him spending the rest of his life trying (and failing) to win other people's love through superficial means. Welles called this in later interviews, "dollar-book Freud" because he felt that people mistook the MacGuffin for TheReveal. Noting the point of the film was that Kane's motivations and actions are mysterious and unknowable, that Rosebud is TheGreatestStoryNeverTold and that the last scene which shows the sled being tossed in the fire was meant to suggest that maybe the secret is not important either.

* Creator/OrsonWelles' ''Film/CitizenKane'' has a DrivingQuestion about "Rosebud" and that it means. The revelation that ItWasHisSled and that it symbolizes his lost childhood reveals that Kane at the end of his life, and perhaps for most of his life, never got over his separation from his mother and his happy childhood, that being raised by his bank led to him spending the rest of his life trying (and failing) to win other people's love through superficial means. Welles called this in later interviews, "dollar-book Freud" because he felt that people mistook the MacGuffin for TheReveal. Noting the point of the film was that Kane's motivations and actions are mysterious and unknowable, that Rosebud is TheGreatestStoryNeverTold and that the last scene which shows the sled being tossed in the fire was meant to suggest that maybe the secret is not important either.
* In ''Film/SecretBeyondTheDoor'' (1948) by Creator/FritzLang, the childhood traumatic event that triggered all the psychological issues for Mark Lamphere (Creator/MichaelRedgrave) was a mistaken belief that his mother had locked him in a room to keep him out of the way when she was going to the theatre with another man.

** ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'s life, obsession, and psyche hinges on the night his parents were killed in front of him and his desire to overcompensate and overcome the helplessness of being a small, vulnerable child seeing his protectors brutally mown down in the blink of an eye. Later events (the death of the second Robin, nearly shooting Alexander Luthor, being cast through time by a mad god) merely add nuance to his behavior, although as time goes on, people note that Batman's general paranoia, his ControlFreak secretive tendencies (which he unleashes not only on villains but his allies and friends: the Batfamily, Justice League, etc.) and his inability to really mature and be a man (i.e. form a meaningful relationship and [[DatingCatwoman not be attracted to]] villainesses), as well as the fact that he ''dresses up as a giant bat'' and takes his legend and CultOfPersonality seriously, means that there are parts to him that aren't entirely conditioned or based on what happened to his parents.

** ''ComicBook/SpiderMan's'' obsession with being a superhero stems entirely from his guilt over letting a robber get away who wound up killing his father-figure Uncle Ben. He consistently reminds himself that ''the one time'' he ignored his "responsibility", it cost him his father figure, and he resolves to use his powers to help others even if it costs him socially. More realistically than Batman, the comics and the live-action films repeatedly show that this by itself doesn't entirely transform Peter overnight since he can't feasibly devote himself full-time to being a superhero and that he often has to negotiate different parts of his social and professional duties, often trapped in a [[ConflictingLoyalty Cornelian dilemma.]]

** Batman's life, obsession, and psyche hinges on the night his parents were killed in front of him and his desire to overcompensate and overcome the helplessness of being a small, vulnerable child seeing his protectors brutally mown down in the blink of an eye. Later events (the death of the second Robin, nearly shooting Alexander Luthor, being cast through time by a mad god) merely add nuance to his behavior, although as time goes on, people note that Batman's general paranoia, his ControlFreak secretive tendencies (which he unleashes not only on villains but his allies and friends: the Batfamily, Justice League, etc.) and his inability to really mature and be a man (i.e. form a meaningful relationship and [[DatingCatwoman not be attracted to]] villainesses), as well as the fact that he ''dresses up as a giant bat'' and takes his legend and CultOfPersonality seriously, means that there are parts to him that aren't entirely conditioned or based on what happened to his parents.

** ''Franchise/SpiderMan's'' obsession with being a superhero stems entirely from his guilt over letting a robber get away who wound up killing his father-figure Uncle Ben. He consistently reminds himself that ''the one time'' he ignored his "responsibility", it cost him his father figure, and he resolves to use his powers to help others even if it costs him socially. More realistically than Batman, the comics and the live-action films repeatedly show that this by itself doesn't entirely transform Peter overnight since he can't feasibly devote himself full-time to being a superhero and that he often has to negotiate different parts of his social and professional duties, often trapped in a [[ConflictingLoyalty Cornelian dilemma.]]

* Averted by Rean of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel''. While the incident with his SuperpoweredEvilSide caused the most trauma and gets the most focus in the story, it's mentioned that he also blames himself for people mistreating his family after his adoption. Both events contributed to his MartyrWithoutACause tendencies and sense that he doesn't deserve compassion, [[spoiler: which don't fully go away until ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsIntoReverie Reverie.]]'']]

* In the DayInTheLimelight episode "The Beach" of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', all four of the Fire Nation teenagers explain that their personalities are entirely to blame from Single Defining Psychoses (save Zuko): Ty Lee joined the circus and craves attention because she was ignored in a set of seven sisters, Mai has no emotions because her mom shut her down whenever she tried to express herself, and Azula believes that [[ParentalFavoritism her mom hated her]] (although Azula is a [[PsychoForHire sociopath]] and admits as much). They eventually decide the best therapy is to [[DisproportionateRetribution completely trash the house of the guy who slighted them]] together. Well, they are still the ''villains'' in the story.

* Subverted ''and'' played straight in ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'': Wolf's issues with food, love, and his animal urges are hilariously sent up in scenes with a New York Jewish psychiatrist, and after only ''one session'' (which he later describes to Virginia as "extensive therapy") he suddenly pronounces himself a changed man and produces "the books to prove it," consisting of several titles of real, well-known self-help books. These books make the journey with the heroes and, seemingly after one read-through, manage to correct character flaws and induce positive developments in all the protagonists. On the other hand, the source of [[BigBad the Evil Queen]]'s wicked nature seems to stem from one event: [[spoiler:once it is revealed that she is actually Virginia's [[MysteriousParent missing mother]], Tony then reveals that she attempted to drown Virginia as a little girl because she was 'sick and getting worse and worse', a rather vague statement of mental illness. And it was this instability that made her easy prey for [[TheManBehindTheMan Snow White's Wicked Stepmother.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' has Rean who was well adjusted as a kid until he discovered that he has a SuperpoweredEvilSide. He ends up getting traumatized by the event and overcoming it is a part of his character development.

* Flashbacks in ''WebVideo/{{Awkward}}'' reveal Alex's [[StalkerWithACrush stalkerish]] tendencies are rooted in [[spoiler:a series of bad dates and harsh rejections]]. Possibly justified in that the straw that broke the camel's back was him [[spoiler:being rejected for not being enough like [[Literature/{{Twilight}} Edward Cullen]].]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'' parodies this with the episode where they go back in time to set Sigmund Freud back on track. The climax sees Freud rapidly diagnosing people's psychological issues in a comically rapid manner. For example, one guy brings up that he [[RealDreamdAreWeirder dreamed he was a watermelon]], and Freud tells him that he hates his mother.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Enneagram}} self-help tool is based around this idea, positing nine personality types which are all responses to a single overriding insecurity. Slightly subverted in that the Enneagram does not insist that anyone is ''only'' one type, instead focusing on identifies dysfunctional behaviors.