DONKEY KONG
DONKEY KONG:
The good tutor
In spite of its renfrogné air and its worthy age (it has more than 20 years!), Donkey Kong the gorilla is a truth nounours. Its originators equipped it with humour, altruism and team spirit. The children see in him an ideal playmate, an alive cuddly toy which can solve all the problems. In the world of the video games, it is at the origin of the appearance of more or less strange animals, but always sympathetic nerves, like Fox, Yoshi, Gift or Gex. All are objects of projection, because they make it possible the child to test, virtually, the facets of its personality without endangering itself in the real-world, like its manual and intellectual capacities (attention, logic, etc) without fearing the judgement of the adults.
BRADWEN (Knights of Arthur)
The spiritual search
Another sure value of our cultural heritage, which is far from disappearing: the legend arthurienne. Main character of this play: Bradwen, which must overcome many tests to become a knight of the Roundtable. In addition to the historical concern, the play presents an originality: at the beginning, the player must choose if Bradwen is a Celtic or Christian knight. Celt, it will enter the world of the fairies and the magic; Christian, it will follow a more rational way. This decision accentuates the implication of the player in his character. Rather intended for the teenagers, Bradwen represents the prototype of the warlike hero who, in the epic legends, must carry out an initiatory search to discover his true personality, his human values and spiritual, and his place in the world.
TARZAN
The natural virile force
No matter what one says some, the appearance of strange creatures resulting from another planets does not make die the heroes of our childhood. In success testifies to the video game Tarzan, the largest sale of Disney Interactive to date, and that of the cartoon, of which more than 1 million cassettes was sold in two months. Of course, this character was re-examined and corrected by Disney. Impetuous, sympathetic nerve, spontaneous and close to nature, it concretizes the tendency natural of the little boys to be climbed with the trees, and represents
the virile force and the human values in which they like to be recognized… for better defending them.
LINK (Zelda)
The lord of the banked-up beds
Since 1987, Zelda is the most popular roleplay. Its hero, Link, must achieve perilous missions for the beautiful eyes of the Zelda princess. It is the character to which are identified more the 8-13 years. Initially because it resembles Peter Pan, the child who did not want to grow. Don’t many young boys secretly want to remain children? Then because, in a universe largely inspired of the novels of Tolkien, Link must save its planet of darkness, recurrent theme in many video games and of mythical epopees. This role makes it possible the child to be found, the time of an adventure, in the center of the world. It is the first stage of the process of individuation which, according to Jung, allows, through an initiatory course, to start to leave childhood to reach the statute of adult.
MARIO
MARIO:
The family spirit
Mario inaugurated, twenty years ago, the plays of “platform” and action, in which a character must traverse labyrinths by collecting magic tools. But how this Italian plumber man with a moustache and fatty, prototype of the anti-hero, did become a star world? With a brother-in-law (Luigi), a beloved (the Pauline princess) and a twin malefic (Warrio), it incarnates the family spirit. He is also the “natural” father of all the characters of plays of action. The children are not identified with him, but rather see it like an accessory grandpa. In addition, it evolves/moves in the typical universe of the tales, like “Alice with the country of the wonders”: to pass from a world (a level of play) to the other, Mario must sometimes cross a mirror. Of universe where all is allowed the children like particularly this kind.
Video Games – 1
PIKACHU (Pokémon):
The transitional object
Pikachu is the first and preferred of the 151 Pokémon (there will be of them 100 of more in April 2001!). The children must collect them and educate them by developing their “capacities”. Why such a success at the small ones? Initially because Pikachu is a transitional object. According to the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, the baby, taken of anguish when his/her mother goes away, an object (fabric, nonours, etc) clutches which enables him to overcome the traumatism of separation. Then, because, between 7 and 12 years, appear the first desires of collection. They correspond to the need for the child to classify the elements of the outside world to take possession, a means intellectually of it of measuring itself in the world of the adults.
Nintendo, on GameBoy and Nintendo 64.
SACHA (Pokémon):
The mirror of the personality
The saga of Pokémon rests on a character: Sacha, prototype of the overflowing little boy of energy and curiosity, who incarnates the child himself. As in the majority of the video games, Sacha does not speak, which facilitates projection in the character. The more so as, progressively, this one is equipped with qualities of the player.
The goal is to become the largest trainer of Pokémon of the world. Divided into four categories equivalent to the four elements (water, air, fire, ground), Pokémon must deliver engagements. The winner is not inevitably most powerful, but most astute. The confrontation of the natural elements is an universal principle which one finds in the majority of the legends (“the Queen of snows”, of Andersen). Lastly, to become “Pokémon Master” is developing for the children who are the best neither classifies some nor in sport…
Nintendo, on GameBoy and Nintendo 64.
To know how to control its anger
Aggressiveness can only involve the animosity of others. While knowing to show emotional intelligence, one arrives to a better self-control. Tricks and easy ways not to explode more with the quarter of turn…
Do not waste any more your energy! When you explode of anger, some is the reason, not only you cause an useless rise of adrenalin but especially you will not obtain anything of developing. To terrorize its next not being inevitably the best means of communicating with him. While controlling your aggressiveness you at the same time will gain in self-esteem but also in force of persuasion. That it is with a colleague, a friend or an unknown, will be able to privilege the calm one rather than the storm. It is a basic rule of the emotional intelligence.
The people who are able to carry themselves easily are unaware of at which point most of the time their reaction remains perfectly unjustified. With children for example: to show authority does not imply anger inevitably. Admittedly, in the life it is sometimes good to raise the tone. One feels better after, but it cannot be an art of living under penalty of seeing its entourage taking a runout powder.
To find the right authority by exceeding its fears
He does not want to go to lie down”, “It is the comedy as soon as arrives the hour of the duties”, “He makes any only at his head”… These testimony of parents, Claude Halmos almost daily hears them in consultation. Causes it of this great parental distress? “The absence of authority, affirms the psychoanalyst. These parents who, in addition, deal with their children and try to be most attentive possible do not impose what they should impose. Either because they refuse by principle any position of authority, or because, although the acceptor, they do not manage to support it. ” Untiring militant of education, Claude Halmos knows, to have a long time worked in difficult suburbs, that it is the absence of education, therefore of authority – family, school or social -, which manufactures the delinquency. “To educate a child, it is him to learn how to become a civilized being. ” That supposes, side parents, of firmness, constancy and, especially, the conviction that this authority is legitimate because, without it, the newborn can build himself.
But, to show, still is necessary it to be able to exceed its own resistances, sometimes solid, which are opposed to its exercise. For the psychoanalyst, the parents are aware that these are the fears which prevent them from positioning with accuracy. These fears, we submitted them to Claude Halmos, so that it informs us on their feel and proposes tracks to us to exceed them.