Sunil, Final Episode, Sunil Deported

Paul's phone call seals Sunil's fate by lending tacit support for whatever Julia might choose to do. Sunil indicates that he manipulated everyone involved so as to bring about his deportation, so that he could fulfill his dream of living an independent life. This claim may be accurate. He may have been furious with his dying wife when she declared that he was incapable of taking care of himself and must be taken in by his son like a stray puppy. If he was furious, however, that fury would have been unconscious. So before he could manipulate others, he had to manipulate himself psychologically to bring the fury more out into the open. Paul's therapy was invaluable in this respect. It is doubtful that Sunil would have achieved his unconscious goal without it.

Julia is objectively beautiful, so it is quite understandable that Sunil was attracted to her and her penchant for physical intimacies, understandable too that he would be jealous of Julia's favorite client. Self-manipulation mainly took the form of exaggerated attraction leading to exaggerated jealousy, each so overblown as to make his life with Julia unbearable.

Sunil sticks to his story that Malini killed herself after becoming pregnant with Sunil's baby. His memory may be accurate, but I continue to have my doubts. It just may be a calcification of the story he concocted for the police. Malini seemed to have been too much of a free spirit to kill herself upon becoming pregnant and too much of a free spirit perhaps to limit her sexual activity to Sunil. If the baby was not Sunil's, it is quite possible that was enough to drive Sunil to murder. The river Malini drowned in is as wide as the Mississippi River. There is no need for rocks in her pocket to ensure that she would actually drown; their more probable use was to keep her corpse from surfacing. This does not mean that there was ever any danger to Julia. Sunil had undoubtedly been furious with his narcissistic wife for 30 years for one reason or another, yet he remained subservient to her for all that time nevertheless. Sunil was fully programmed to a life with narcissists. Rebelling after all this time would go too much against the grain, especially when rebellion would mean abandoning a persona Sunil needed to believe was true.

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Entertainment

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• In Treatment
• Sunil

[Waltham1892]

Why the focus on, and anger towards, Julia? Julia was manipulated, as was Paul and Arun, to achieve Sunil's ends.

Sunil clearly has features of an Axis II Cluster B personaity disorder.

[ControlMastery]

@Waltham1892 No anger. Sunil and Julia cooperated in achieving the same goal. Narcissists are victims, too.

[Waltham1892]

Calling Julia's actions "cooperaton" might be of an overstatement. Given Sunil's pattern of manipulation how can we say that Julia's removal of Sunil from house is not a reasonable responce to Sunil's goal driven behavior?

I think we identifying to much with Sunil, who was the presenting client so has the advantage of proximiy and intimacy, and the reaction to Julia is counter-transference inspired.

And Narcissists are ALWAYS victims; just ask them...

[ControlMastery]

@Waltham1892 I called Sunil a murderer who has repressed that fact for most of his life, which implies serious psychopathology, as you indicate, so I fail to see how I possibly could be thought of as giving him a pass. True, I did harp on Julia's narcissism, but only because it was the 800 lb gorilla in the room that explained much of what Julia did and yet remained invisible to Paul.

[starrfist]

Wow, I'm the very first person to view this video. Cool. Now my question: How did you so readily know that Julia and Sunil's wife were narcissists?

[ControlMastery]

@starrfist A couple containing a narcissistic partner presents itself as consisting of only one fully formed human being. The complicit partner slinks back, staying in the shadows of the narcissist. Julia’s narcissism was most clearly shown in Arun’s behavior in the first episode. Arun let Julia do most of the talking and seemed much shorter than Julia when sitting down even though he was actually taller than she. He also was clingy, like a small child with his mother.

[Waltham1892]

True, education does not make violence impossible. However, in behavioral science litriture education is negatively correlated with violence...

[starrfist]

@Waltham1892 Um, being educated has nothing to do with the presence of violence in a person. I know from experience. Just wanted to point that out.

[SamStoutisArrogant]

@Waltham1892 Believe what you want. I would encourage you however to not disregard the now infamous clique uttered by many people after a killer has been found in their community:

"He was a quite man... "

[Waltham1892]

I can't agree with that. Individuals have what Adler would call "life styles." which can be thought of as behavioral scripts.

An individual seldom departs from well established patterns of behavior. It is even more rare that individuals depart their patterns of behavior to preform EXTREME acts, such as violence.

Sunil is neither anti-social nor psychotic. His violent thoughts are a self-admitted confabulation. He is probably more borderline/dependant than anything else.

[Waltham1892]

I'm much more prone to believe that the "child is the father of the man." Sunil's defining characteristics are passivity and manipulation.  It is more likely that Malini was the active member of the relationship and killed herself because Sunil would not step beyond his passivity to help her.

We have no evidence Sunil killed Malini other than Sunil’s vague threats which Sunil admits were made to manipulate Paul.

[SamStoutisArrogant]

@Waltham1892 I would also like to add, from personal experience, I know a demeanor of timidity and passivity in someone is absolutely no sign that they are not capable of violence. In fact it can hint toward a frustrated hopelessness that simmers just below the surface.

[SamStoutisArrogant]

@Waltham1892 Be sure to take into account that at the time of Malini's death Sunil would have been in his twenties, in the midst of his first life crisis which Erickson stated is defined by the subconscious imperative to locate stable emotional attachment outside the family of origin. Not the refined individual portrayed in Irrfan Khan's performance. The favor of a person like Malini would have held a promise of freedom to the child of a narcissist. The threat of its removal cruel torture.

[Waltham1892]

@ControlMastery I don't see Sunil as a murderer. I know violence and violent men and Sunil is to well educated, to passive, and to adept at manipulation (indicating long practice), to make a likely violent offender. In fact, it was because failed to present as violent that I offered he was manipulating Paul.

As for Julia narcissism, I think we've seen to little of her, in to narrow a context, in to conflicted a situation, to reach that conclusion just yet.