Meredith+Grey



By: Meghan Kelley

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﻿Biography: Meredith Grey is one of the main characters in ABC’s hit show, //Grey’s Anatomy.// //Grey’s Anatomy// began in March of 2005 and is currently in its seventh season. Meredith’s life beginning as a medical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital is followed throughout all seven seasons of the show. The series begins with Meredith moving from Boston to Seattle, to deal with her mother’s house and belongings. Meredith’s mother, Ellis Grey, has recently been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Ellis Grey was a profound surgeon in her time; Meredith introduces her mother in the first episode, “my mother was one of the greats, me on the other hand- I’m kind of screwed,” right before entering on her first day of work (Rhimes, 2005-2011).

It takes seven years to become a surgical resident, Meredith takes this journey with other characters; Cristina Yang, Izzie Stevens, George O’Malley, and Alex Karev. Meredith is introduced as graduating from Dartmouth College, however she barely graduated due to excessive drinking and partying; yet Ellis’ disease is what inspires her daughter to go to medical school ("Meredith Grey," 2011). Meredith was abandoned as a child by her father, Thatcher Grey, when she was five years old. Ellis took her job very seriously and eventually ended up having an affair with a co-worker, who later on turns out to be Meredith’s boss, Chief Richard Webber. Meredith is the only real family member Ellis has left, and is the only person close enough to her to actually know about the Alzheimer’s. The night before her first day at work she has a one night stand, not knowing the man, Derek Shepherd, is a neurological surgeon at Seattle Grace, leading to very complicated events later on (Rhimes, 2005-2011).

Trait Skill Approach:

The trait skill approach to personality has gradually shifted over the years however the main dynamics of it have remained the same. There are a small number of types of personalities, and within these types each person fits one “type” the best. Extroversion and introversion were introduced by Carl Jung and with these two attitudes; four functions also went along with them: sensing, thinking, feeling, and intuiting (Friedman, 2009, p. 259).

Later on, Gordon Allport added that “although behavior is variable, there is also a constant portion of each person” (Friedman, 2009, p. 262). The Big Five model was introduced in the 1960s believing that most “trait approaches to personality can be captured by five dimensions”- openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Friedman, 2009, p. 267). If we were to look at Meredith Grey and analyze her in regards to the five dimensions we could conclude she is high on openness, high on neuroticism, low on conscientiousness, low on agreeableness, and falls somewhat in the middle of the scale on extroversion.

We could say that Meredith is high on openness because she turns out to be a truly brilliant surgeon. Openness is defined as being, “imaginative, witty, original, and artistic” (Friedman, 2009, p. 267). In the first episode we see how Meredith is both imaginative and witty. She is able to see what is wrong with one of the patients before all of the other interns are able to realize it; she realizes that the girl has a brain aneurism which Derek Shepherd says “is one in a million that she is correct,” however Meredith turns out to be right (Rhimes, 2005-2011).

Meredith is high on neuroticism also defined as “emotional instability, and tense” (Friedman, 2009, p. 267). In episode three season two, Ellis comes into the hospital as a patient making a huge scene and calling everyone amateurs; Meredith hides from her mother and has never told anyone about the Alzheimer’s. Throughout the entire day Meredith keeps her composure and frequently responds with “I’m fine,” when asked how she is dealing with everything. However it is only towards the end when Meredith truly breaks down and tells Derek, “I’m just exhausted, my mother is exhausting, what happened to Cristina and you; hating you is the most exhausting” (Rhimes, 2005-2011). Cristina is in surgery after having an unsafe pregnancy, while Derek’s wife shows up proving that Derek is married and he had never told Meredith, even though they had been dating. This drastic change in emotion from the beginning of the day until the end of the day shows that Meredith is in fact very emotionally unstable.

Meredith is low on conscientiousness also defined as “lack of impulsivity, cautious, organized, and dependable” (Friedman, 2009, p. 267). We don’t really ever know exactly what is going to come out of Meredith’s mouth or what she is going to do. For example, in episode nine season two Meredith tells a man who is in a vegetative state, “I’d give anything for your serenity right now” (Rhimes, 2005-2011). Most would not consider this a rational, cautious thought. Meredith talks to her friend, Alex, later in this episode saying, “I feel like one of those people who is so miserable I can’t be around normal people, like I’ll infect the happy people.” Meredith is definitely impulsive and sums up the episode with, “No one likes to lose control- it’s a sign of weakness, no matter how hard you fight it, you fall and it’s scary as hell” (Rhimes, 2005-2011). She may realize that she is losing control but this does not necessarily seem to lead her to be more cautious in her actions and decision making.

Meredith is also low on agreeableness specifically in the aspect of trusting. It is obvious that she doesn’t really trust anyone since she doesn’t tell her closest friends about her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease until her mother actually shows up at the hospital, leading her to have to confront the situation. Through different therapy sessions with Dr. Wyatt it is also clear that she doesn’t trust men, perhaps due to her father abandoning her as a child but we aren’t quite sure (“Meredith Grey Therapy,” 2009).

It is somewhat difficult to decide whether Meredith is high or low on the extroversion scale. Extroversion or surgency is also defined as someone being “energetic, sociable, and talkative” (Friedman, 2009, p. 267). Meredith isn’t necessarily very talkative she appears to be rather closed off when she first meets people and even later on struggles to trust them and actually tell them things. However the opposite of extroversion is being quiet and submissive. Meredith is also not very quiet because she can speak her mind when it is something not involving details about herself but is involving for example, a patient.

Interestingly we have also learned about what career paths certain people may choose depending on how their personality relates to the Big Five. However, Meredith does not seem to fit this correctly in regards to her career of being a doctor. We learned that someone who is high on agreeableness will want to help people. Yet Meredith is rather low on agreeableness but is obviously helping people through being a doctor. Meredith was not really high on conscientiousness but is still successful at work, which is also contradictory to what we have learned. (Friedman, 2009, p. 271)

Hans Eysenck disagreed that personality can be summed up in five different aspects but rather chose to focus on only three; extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism (Friedman, 2009, p. 277). Eysenck defined extroversion and neuroticism similarly to how they are defined in the Big Five however psychoticism was defined as “a tendency toward psychopathology, involving impulsivity and cruelty,” and also “tough-mindedness and shrewdness” (Friedman, 2009, p. 277). Meredith is rather impulsive and tough-minded but she never seems to act intentionally cruel towards anyone. In fact, even though her father did abandon her as a child she even agrees to give him part of her liver in a liver transplant, after her half-sister, Lexi, begs her to do so. Meredith claims she is only doing it for Lexi but she still obviously realizes that she is helping out her father by participating in the transplant also (“Meredith Grey,” 2011).

According to Henry Murray people have four different types of motives that drive their actions; need for achievement, need for affiliation, need for power, and need for exhibition. Meredith would most likely be motivated by need for achievement, which is “the need to succeed on tasks that are set out by society.” (Friedman, 2009, p. 281). She felt that she had let down her mother since she was such a successful surgeon so she attempts to follow in her footsteps. However, one could argue that Meredith becomes even greater than her mother since she ends up with many friends and a husband who she is immensely happy with (Rhimes, 2005-2011).

Psychoanalytic Approach:

The Psychoanalytic approach to personality psychology emphasizes the unconscious processes that go on in one’s own mind. Basically a person cannot actually pinpoint what is truly driving their actions, which is why Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalytics believed that the unconscious is driving people's actions. This approach takes into account many different defense mechanisms that the brain does in order to prevent the individual from anxiety, and to also stop any kind of threatening material to reach the actual conscience (Friedman, 2009, p. 67).

Throughout all of the different seasons we can see how Meredith’s brain has used defense mechanisms. In episode five of season one, Meredith has to deal with her mother signing over her estate while her mother is still lucid. Meredith is completely exhausted over all of this and accidentally thinks she has caused a slight hole in a patient’s heart due to her finger-nail. The entire day she worries something is going to go wrong with the patient, part way through her day she has to go over to her mother’s nursing home. She finds that her mother is not lucid and then Meredith continues to scream at the notary and employees at the nursing home calling them “irresponsible” for not having the papers singed over sooner. This is an example of the defense mechanism, displacement, where someone is shifting their unconscious aggression or fears onto a safer target (Friedman, 2009, p. 67). Meredith is worried about possibly killing her patient back at the hospital but instead of doing anything about that she is calling other people irresponsible (Rhimes, 2005-2011).

In episode’s fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen of season three there is a severe ferry boat accident causing almost one thousand people to be either dead or injured. Meredith had been dealing with a lot of things at the time especially with her mother. In a very confused state her mother said to Meredith, “I raised you to be an extraordinary human being, how do you think I feel waking up five years later and you’re nothing but ordinary” (Rhimes, 2005-2011). In episode fifteen Meredith states, “do you ever feel like you’re disappearing?” (Rhimes, 2005-2011). It begins with Meredith lying in her bathtub and only coming out of the water when Derek Shepherd, her boyfriend, physically pulls her out forcing her to breathe again. At the scene of the ferry boat accident Meredith helps a man near the water, however the man was in great pain and ends up pushing Meredith into the bay. Most people would expect her to swim, however she lets herself drown, only to be saved by Derek once again. Freud would argue that this is an example of amnesia, which is that unconscious thoughts affect our behavior (Friedman, 2009, p. 68). We find out later in the fourth season that Ellis tried to commit suicide in front of Meredith as a child, when Meredith talks about this with her therapist, Dr. Wyatt, admitting she has never spoken about this to anyone before (“Meredith Grey Therapy,” 2009). This also serves as an example of repression, when someone pushes threatening thoughts and ideas into the unconscious (Friedman, 2009, p. 67). Meredith draws the conclusion that Ellis did it for attention rather than to actually die. Meredith may have been acting similarly to her mother and also acting out for attention. Her mother had recently just called her “ordinary,” and essentially made Meredith feel like she was worthless. As Meredith enters the “after-life” she sees her mother, who is also dying at the same time, it is only after her mother tells her that she is “anything but ordinary” does Meredith finally get a heartbeat again after being hypothermic for almost two hours (Rhimes, 2005-2011).

We can also see through the many therapy sessions with Dr. Wyatt that Meredith also uses denial, or the “refusal to acknowledge anxiety-provoking stimuli” (Friedman, 2009, p. 68). Dr. Wyatt tries to bring connections between Meredith and a dead patient. Meredith is trying to deny that she has feelings for Derek, which Dr. Wyatt is well aware of when Meredith says she doesn’t quit things. Wyatt responds, “Yes, you do. Your mother quit your father, your father quit you, and now you’re quitting your boyfriend” (“Meredith Grey Therapy,” 2009). Meredith also uses denial later on in season seven while in therapy with Dr. Andrew Perkins. Perkins is brought in after there is a shooting at the hospital and Meredith sees Derek get shot. She keeps saying that everything is “fine,” and yet just looking at the scene and how her mind flashes back to seeing Derek get shot, everyone can tell that she is not fine at all (“MerDer #2,” 2010).

Discussion:

Overall, Meredith Grey is an extremely complex character, however she is this way for understandable reasons. She had a very difficult childhood with her mother only focusing on her career, and not having a father in her life. After she tries to escape her mother and basically live her life by going away to college she is drawn back in again when her mother’s Alzheimer’s becomes out of control. Her mother is the only family that she has and therefore she feels compelled to go back and help out. In the trait skill approach it is interesting to see how Meredith ranks on the Big Five scale. She is extremely low on agreeableness specifically in the aspect of trusting others most likely due to being abandoned as a child by basically both of her parents. Yet she appears to be somewhat open because she is definitely an original person with all different types of reactions to certain situations. She is most definitely neurotic since she has many important events going on in her life leading her to be happy one minute and depressed at the next. She is definitely impulsive and therefore not conscientious because she lacks caution in almost all situations, which is seen when she puts her hand inside of a man with a bomb in him (Rhimes, 2005-2011). We just aren’t sure about how to rank her extroversion since she is not extremely sociable but also isn’t very shy.

In the psychoanalytic approach, Freud and others supporting this approach would definitely argue that things occurred to Meredith in her childhood that she has repressed and not really thought about. Examples would be her mother attempting suicide in front of her, and her father abandoning her at age five. Her mother also suffered from depression after Chief Webber went back to his wife; which must have caused Ellis to treat Meredith differently and in general just not being happy around her own child (Rhimes, 2005-2011). Meredith frequently tries to defend herself using defense mechanisms in order to not have to face what she is actually feeling or thinking.

References:

Friedman, H. S. & Schustack, M. W. (2009). Personality: Classic theories and modern research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

//Grey’s Anatomy Seasons 1-6 on Netflix.com.// (n.d.). Retrieved from []

Meredith Grey. (2011). Retrieved April 5, 2011 from []

Meredith Grey Therapy Sessions Compiled [Video file]. Retrieved from []

Rhimes, Shonda (Creator/Director). (2005-2011). [Television series episode]. //Grey’s Anatomy.// ABC.

7x01 MerDer #2 [Video file]. Retrieved from []