We did a lot of psychoanalysing about Sherlock. It's a sign that we try to understand a person. As long as we are aware that 1. is is a fictional character and 2. that we are not given the full picture (and therefore possibly wrong)  I can't see why we shouldn't try to understand John's behaviour in series 3 by means of an amateur psychologist.
That's what Sherlock is all about: to walk in another person's shoes.

belis wrote:

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

And while I'm no expert, I'm not sure PTSD is the right diagnosis for John...the nightmares would fit, and anger, depression, avoidance of long-term relationships, and even lack of interest in normal life can be symptoms -  but wouldn't someone with PTSD be scared (freaked out) over the kinds of things John and Sherlock jump into? John seeks these situations out...whatever he is, he's not especially fearful.

Sherlock's work is probably enough like combat that it feels normal to John.

Avoidence is a common symptom of PTSD but is not essential to make a diagnosis. Some people avoid anything that may trigger painful memories and others ruminate excesively and constantly think about the event. Paradoxically some will put themselves at risk. For example drive dengerously after a car accident. If avoidence is present the degree will vary considerably. Using a car crash as example again one person may not be able to get into a car again, even as a passanger and another person may only be triggered by that one particular route at a specific time of the day.

What John and Sherlock do is dengerous but it doesn't really resamble active combat in any shape or form. For some reason John never got back to the millitary. I would imagine that they would welcome him back after his limp was resolved as they are always crying for doctors. So there may be some element of avoidence on his part.

 

Well, John and Sherlock's work puts them in situations where they have guns pointed at them, or they might be blown up by bombs. So that's a paralllel with combat. And sometimes John doesn't want to go with Sherlock for some reason (like, he's mad at him, or John is with a woman) he never avoids the situations out of fear. In fact, in TEH, I got the impression when they headed off for the Underground that John was still mad at Sherlock but he couldn't resist the lure of adventure even then.

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

Well, John and Sherlock's work puts them in situations where they have guns pointed at them, or they might be blown up by bombs. So that's a paralllel with combat. And sometimes John doesn't want to go with Sherlock for some reason (like, he's mad at him, or John is with a woman) he never avoids the situations out of fear. In fact, in TEH, I got the impression when they headed off for the Underground that John was still mad at Sherlock but he couldn't resist the lure of adventure even then.

It's parallel but it's not combat. Having a gun pointed at you or being in a vicinity of a bomb is very different to being under fire in Afganistan or seeing people blown up by a roadside bomb. The thing with PTSD triggers and flashbacks is that they often work more on sensory and subconcious level rather than logical thought. It's all processed by the amygdala, which is a primitive part of the brain. It's strange but he would probably be more likely to be triggered by a sound or smell of somthing that related directly to the time when he was shot than having a gun pointed at him in a very different context. I agree that most people with PTSD would avoid the situations that John puts himslef into but it's not unheard off to remain a thrill sicker despite the diagnosis.

For some reason he prefers to be a GP and run around London with Sherlock rather than go back to his military career. It is open to interpretation if that is a sign of avoidence or is solving crimes simply more exciting for him.

There is obviously an element of dramatic license here. When we get to meet John he has been in therapy for a while so it's reasonable to expect that he recovered to an extent. Avoidence is a big focus of therapy for PTSD. Than he gets even better after he starts working with Sherlock and after episode one he hardly displays any symptoms at all.

Harobed wrote:

belis!
Brilliant!
It was like listening to a psychologist calmly speaking in depth with experience about what John has been going through.  Thank you for lending such insight!
It was an engrossing read...

Thanks for that. It's a difficult thing to do with fictional characters as there is only so much you can get from observation on it's own. The bonus is that you get to see them in situations that you would not see a real life patient. There is a lot of speculation and you can't confirm your theories by asking questions.

Saying that doctors notoriously make difficult patients, particularly when it comes to mental health problems. My guess would be that even if I did get a chance to ask questions I wouldn't get very far. I don't think Ella ever managed to build a decent report despite seeing him for a considerable length of time.
 

Wiggins wrote:

We're snowed in. AGAIN.

So we are doing a sherlock marathon.

Watching sib right now and John beats sherlock on that one too. He wants one punch but John keeps going for more even jumping on his back strangling him talking about how he killed people for a living. (Army)

So... How is he so different in season 3?

That's a wierd scene anyway-- Sherlock tells him John to punch him, John hesitates, and Sherlock asks him if he heard what he said; and John's like, " I usually want to punch you whenever you open your mouth", revealing that he often has violent thoughts regarding Sherlock. 

And I gotta say, it did cross my mind--"John, if this guy pisses you off so much, why the heck do you stay?" 

I've always thought that there was a love/hate thing going on with John and his feelings towards Sherlock. 
 

belis wrote:

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

That's a wierd scene anyway-- Sherlock tells him John to punch him, John hesitates, and Sherlock asks him if he heard what he said; and John's like, " I usually want to punch you whenever you open your mouth", revealing that he often has violent thoughts regarding Sherlock. And I gotta say, it did cross my mind--"John, if this guy pisses you off so much, why the heck do you stay?" 

I know a couple of people that make me want to slap them most of the time when they open their mouths. On further reflection there is often truth in what they say and they are not bad people, quite to the contrary. It's just the way they express themselves that makes you want to throttle them.

Actually, that makes me think of the scene where John is hard on Sherlock for "not caring" about human beings-- during a case-TGG. 

And Sherlock asks John if caring will help save the victims, and John has to admit that, no it wouldn't.
And then John balks at helping and, Sherlock *proves* what he is saying, "not much cop this caring lark", meaning all the sulking and wailing and emoting didn't  actually do anything to help anyone in the situation they were in. And John begrudgingly got back to work. 

So, possibly-- I can see your scenario, here-- that of knowing someone is right, and just not wanting to hear it. And John's very good at wearing the blinders and truth-cancelling headphones. 
 

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

ne where John is hard on Sherlock for "not caring" about human beings-- during a case-TGG. 

And Sherlock asks John if caring will help save the victims, and John has to admit that, no it wouldn't.
And then John balks at helping and, Sherlock *proves* what he is saying, "not much cop this caring lark", meaning all the sulking and wailing and emoting didn't  actually do anything to help anyone in the situation they were in. And John begrudgingly got back to work. 

So, possibly-- I can see your scenario, here-- that of knowing someone is right, and just not wanting to hear it. And John's very good at wearing the blinders and truth-cancelling headphones. 
 

I think John recognises that what Sherlock says is an uncomfortable truth, a lot of the time. I think he also recognises that the stuff that comes out of Sherlock mouth is not intended to be melicious (most of the time). Depending how you interpret it he either lacks a skill of delivering it in a more dyplomatic way or doesn't attach importance to modulate what he says in terms of other people feelings.

I agree that "I always hear punch me in the face' when you speak- its just usually subtext" is sarcasm. I think it's also a reflection on what most people think when they hear Sherlock speak. John goes beyond that and that's why he is able to tolerate Sherlock and enjoy his company. It's in a way similar to their exchange in a taxi when they first met. What happens next with John going a bit bazerk after Sherlock punched him shows that his patience has limits and that he has a bit of a short fuse.

lil wrote:

Depressed reading this thread....of all the takes on all the Dr.John.Watson in the many different ways...I just can't buy one that goes on happily ever after with the woman that shot Sherlock dead and lied about everything.
Well ok there's a baby...but ...Johns morals guided here by Sherlock?
Thats the anti-John.
Someone needs a plausible your future is my privilege because I'm setting you up to land on Mrs Hudsons trash several times the minute you have the baby theory.

Personally I don't think that John's morals are guided by Sherlock. Morals are the sort of principles that are formed over long period of time, largely in childhood. They would be mostly influenced by his upbringing (which we know little about) and then fine-tuned by army and medical school. I can see Sherlock influencing his behaviour a lot but not really the inner core if that makes sense.

The question here is what is John's take on shooting people and lying. For Sherlock it was easier to accept what Mary did, I think, because he looked at from a more intellectual point of view. It was a logical solution to the problem at the time, so it's OK. Let's move on. John is more intertwined in the feelings side of things and it takes him some time to mull over the situation. In the end he seems to have forgiven Mary and is also ready to move on. I suppose we often look at a situation through the prism of our own morals and use those to judge what is acceptable and what isn't. I somehow see John morals to be slightly away from the mainstream and I think that he could have genuinly come to terms with what Mary has done whilst for most people it would be a deal breaker.

Being cynical I also see a potential scenario here where John is pretending to forgive her in order to keep an eye on a baby and make sure they don't disappear before he gets custody of the child. Than he is going to dump Mary. Or maybe she will just die in action after turning out to be a horrible vilan.

It could turn out either way.
 

I think that some of the most pronounced personality traits in John are loyalty and dutifulness. It makes him well suited both to the career in medicine and being a soldier. After leaving the army he needs a new purpose and devotes himself to working with Sherlock. With a single minded focus. He is a type of person who organizes their world based on their relationships with others. To start with John organises his entire life around Sherlock. When Sherlock is gone everything temporary goes to pieces. Then he reorganises himself around Mary. That may create an impression that he follows other people blindly but I don’t think it’s the case.

I think that John has a set of his own principles and in a way is extremely self-assured. He knows exactly who he is and what he stands for, at every moment. The way he sees the world things are either black or white. This certainty is what helps him to remain unfazed under stress. As in the scene where he first met Mycroft. When John Watson believes in something, there is no doubt in his mind.  That in a way explains to me why he had such a meltdown when he discovered that Mary was lying to him. Key facts that he used to build his internal world on were challenged. White was suddenly black. The whole thing upside down.  

John is a kind of person who is very aware of other people’s feelings. However he isn’t so skilled in recognising his own. He has even more difficulty in expressing his emotions and communicating about them. You could argue that that’s what makes him prone to angry outbursts. It may also be the reason why he has problems with engaging in therapy.
He has a tough decision to make when it comes to Mary as there is a big conflict of loyalties here. On one hand there is a sense of duty as a husband and father. On the other his duty as a friend to Sherlock. I’m not surprised that it took him so long to come to the decision as to what to do but I’m also not surprised by the final outcome.

I don't think he is acting out of character in season 3. It's more that he is under extreme stress and as a result his defence mechanisms and weak points come more to the front.

belis

I take your point regarding John; he has a problem in dealing with ambiguity, and for John it's comforting to view the world in black and white. Overturn that and you overturn everything about him; the problems start when the real world intervenes, and he discovers that the things which he has prided himself on are, in fact, false.

It seems to me that John really, really wants to be normal; he certainly appears on the surface to be a stereotypical product of Bart's, which had, for many years, the reputation of a medical school for hearty chaps who were into rowing and rugby, and, quite possibly, the army because that's what hearty chaps do.

Something went very badly wrong; Moftiss have been totally unspecific about what it was, but clearly, whatever it was, it was sufficient to propel him out of the army and onto civvy street, and when we first meet him he's not adapting very well at all. The life of an officer in the army is, to an extent, one which buffers people from a lot of the boring and mundane aspects of living; there are people to take care of you, your clothes, your food, your room, so that you can focus on your job. Being without that support system is in itself a stressful challenge, to add to whatever it was which went so very badly wrong.

But he made a good start on learning to deal with the real world when he hooked up with Sherlock; one of the reasons for this, I think, was because it enabled him to play the role of 'the sane one', which has particular charm for someone whose mental balance was clearly in doubt, hence his visits, or nonvisits, to his therapist. It was, however, a role, not the reality; he might have become closer to reality as time went by, but I think it was still a role. Sherlock and Mycroft's evaluation of John as unsafe to include in the Reichenbach plan was, for me, a no-brainer; John has a long way still to go before he can be relied on to engage his brain before he opens his mouth.

The problem for me with John in S3 is that he displays distressingly similar responses to Mary's responses; nothing is ever John's fault, just as nothing is ever Mary's fault. Clearly the writers wrote it this way for a reason, just as they wrote it so that we could see why John had to be excluded from the Reichenbach plan, but this is not something I am at all comfortable with, particularly since his apparent ability to rationalise things away, as well as his propensity for violence, is highlighted by CAM's taunt about Mr and Mrs Psychopath.

I am content with an interpretation which says that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson would never abandon a pregnant woman to her enemies, even if those enemies had good reason to hate her; I am less content with a John who seems to have learned no lessons about the way he engages with the world. Once he throws the memory stick in the fire I don't trust him to have Sherlock's back, because someone who deliberately blindfolds himself is not a good companion to have with you as you walk the battlefield.

Actually, not a good thing to do wherever you walk