Barney Stinson Essay Example

He works for AltruCell Corporation, the holding company of Goliath National Bank but his real position at the job is unknown to anyone.

He is an avid Laser Tag fan and is also an illusionist who uses his magic tricks to pick up girls. Barney usually expresses extreme emotionality and always tends to seek attention. He has an excessive need for approval and inappropriate seductiveness, he is also very lively, dramatic, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. Barney's mother was a promiscuous woman who always lied to Barney about the true identity of his father leading him to believe his father was Bob Baker the longtime host of “The Price Is Right”.

His mother lied to him throughout his childhood years in order to boost up his self confidence. Once, he sent out invites for his birthday and no one showed up his mother made up the story that the postman forgot to mail out all the invites. Earlier in his adult life, Barney had been an innocent idealistic young man to be blunt; the boy was a hardcore hippie. He wore his hair long, favored tie dye shirts, played the keyboard at a coffee shop and wanted to join the Peace Corps in Nicaragua with his one and only serious girlfriend Shannon.

After Shannon did not show up upon their departure, Barney went looking for her and he discovered she had in fact been cheating on him with a smooth-talking, crass, rich suit wearing womanizer. Barney was devastated after the incident, in an effort to console him his brother James arranged for the 23-year-old Barney to lose his virginity to their mother's friend, Rhonda "the Man Maker" French. Following his

perceived success with satisfying Rhonda, he transformed into the same suit-wearing womanizer, even going so far as to take up some of his rival's catchphrases.

One haircut and tailor fitting later, Barney had covered up his broken heart with a pinstriped suit of armor, armed himself with catchphrases and a thick layer of charm, and never looked back. However, the more tender personality has not entirely disappeared as it can be seen in his relationship with his mother as well as with Robin (a member of his group he seems to be in love with). Despite what Barney wants people to believe, he truly cares and is fiercely loyal to the people he earmarks as his friends - even if they may not reciprocate the sentiment.

However he usually tries to hide that fact by showing his loyalty in strange, underhanded ways. He once helped Marshall reunite with Lily by undermining Marshall every time he tried to go out with another girl. He sometimes does something that seems selfish only to have a loyal or loving meaning behind it, he’s also very embarrassed when others see his kindness and will often make a rude comment to throw them off. Underneath all his ego and bluster, Barney is a sensitive and very self-conscious person.

He's buried the sensitive, long-haired hippie he used to be under several layers of expensive suits and if it ever shows up briefly, he'll cover it up immediately afterwards. It could be said that Barney Stinson wants to keep the party spinning around him constantly so that he won't have to stop and think about how fleeting it all is. He lives in the moment,

and if he's robbed of that moment, he's nothing. Looking at the profile above, we can say that Barney has adopted one of Freud’s defense mechanism to guard himself against past events.

Defense mechanisms are “strategies the ego uses to defend itself against the anxiety provoked by conflicts of everyday life. ” (Schultz & Schultz, 2009). This theory was proposed by Sigmund Freud who believed that there are three types of anxiety namely: reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety, and moral anxiety which warn a person that the ego is being threaten and might be overthrown if action is not taken. This causes the person to try various rational techniques or non-rational techniques (defense mechanism) to protect the ego.

The use of ego mechanisms of defense usually alters perception of both internal and external reality. In the case of the character, Barney Stinson adopts “repression” as a defense mechanism against his past. Repression can be defined as “the involuntary selective removal from consciousness of anxiety-provoking memories” ( (Holmes, 94). It was first mentioned in Breuer and Freud’s preliminary communication, they referred to it as a “fending off” preventing “incompatible ideas” that arouse un-pleasure such as shame, self-reproach or psychical pain from association with conscious thinking (Breuer & Sigmund, 1985).

Repression is comparable to a withdrawal from painful stimuli; this can be seen in the character who decides to withdraw completely from his earnest, innocent idealistic self as a result of the disloyalty from his girlfriend. “Repression operates by inhibiting (i. e. , preventing knowledge of) the necessary guiding belief of the behavior believed to lead to frustration” (Boag, 2006). Repression doesn’t only mean that bad experiences are forgotten, but rather,

memories of satisfaction (i. e. , good experiences), also believed to lead to danger, can also be targeted.

When we closely examine Barney it can be noticed that the character can be linked to Adler’s theory of “inferiority feelings”. Adler believed that inferiority feelings are always present as a motivating force in behavior and are the source for all human striving, they are necessary in individuals as they provide the motivation needed to strive and grow. Inferiority feelings are neither a weakness nor disability however when these feelings are compensated in the wrong way then complexes tend to be formed.

Compensation is the “a motivation to overcome inferiority, to strive for higher levels of development” (Schultz & Schultz, 2009). Once an individual is unable to compensate the normal inferiority feelings then the person experiences “inferiority complex” in which the person grows up to have poor opinions of oneself while feeling helpless and unable to cope with the demands of life. On the other hand, once an individual overcompensates for the normal inferiority feelings he/she develops a “superiority complex”.

This usually involves the person exaggerating opinions of one’s abilities and accomplishment also, the person might feel the need to work and become extremely successful so as to boast and denigrate others; basically the person is trying to cover up his/her insecurities. In the case of the character, Barney overcompensates for his normal inferiority feelings. He tries to cover up the fact that he was a wimp who had little/no friends, didn’t know his father and had a slutty mother by putting up this overly confident front.

Barney compensates his inferiority feelings by excelling to be the best at whatever he

does even if it means coming up with tricks to lure girls into bed. The suit can be considered as an act to show an air of importance wherever he goes, the statement “his opinion is not just the best; it's the only one that counts” highlights the fact that he thinks highly of himself. The need to compensate could be the source that drives Barney to excel in all activities he takes upon such as completing the New York City marathon with no prior training or being able to speak more than one language besides English.

Basically Barney tries to hard his insecurities by working hard to be the best at anything he takes upon, hence the catchphrase “challenge accepted”. Looking at Adler’s theory of birth order being a major social influence in childhood, “the second child always has the example of the older child’s behavior as a model” (Schultz & Schultz, 2009). Barney had James to look up to and model his behavior from. James was responsible for setting up Barney to loose his virginity to their mother’s friend and this event went a long way in shaping his current personality.

Also James is always charming and can always get the attention of the ladies seeing as he is gay, this works to Barney’s advantage as he continues to hook him up with girls thereby being his wingman. According to Adler, second born children are “optimistic about the future and are likely to be competitive and ambitious” (Schultz & Schultz, 2009) as can be seen in the case of Barney. In summary, Barney is an earnest, innocent idealistic young man who had a rough childhood

and suffered heartbreak in his early adulthood.

This caused him to adopt repression as a form of defense mechanism, trying to forget the past event by taking on a completely different personality. In addition to repressing bad memories, Barney also has a superiority complex trying to overcompensate for his inferiority feelings as a kid and as a young adult. His relationship with his brother also helped in making Barney the person he is today. Basically events that occurred in Barney’s life have gone a long way in making him the lively, dramatic, enthusiastic, and flirtatious person he is today.