RATIONALE

Title: The psychological report of Lennie.

Type of text: Psychological report.

Purpose: Explore further than the book and collect details about the behaviour of

Lennie

This written assignment is of the book “Of mice and men” written by John

Steinbeck and first published in 1937. From the story of “Of mice and men” it

called my attention how the character Lennie acted and behaved like if he were

a little kid and how he always got easily carried by his impulses. With a

psychological report of Lennie, I can gather together details about Lennie and his

mental health. I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist so this report won’t include

recommendations or an interpretation of results which I’m not capable to do,

instead I will focus more in the analysis of Lennie’s behaviour and factors that

affect in it. This task was achieved by paying special attention to the behaviour of

Lennie while reading the book. Is also important to mention that this text is meant

to be read by any person that has already read the book and wants to read about

more possible details about the story.

About the context of the report, it occurs after an alternative ending of the story

where Lennie is not killed but taken to a psychologist to analyse his behaviour.

Word count: 218

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 PSYCHOLOGICAL REPORT

1. GENERAL DATA:

Name: Lennie Small

Sex: Male

Age: 30

Date of birth: February 22th, 1900

Place of birth: Auburn, Alabama

Level of education: Incomplete elementary school

Occupation: Farm worker

Date of examination: July 24th, 1930

Examiner: Jack Brown

2. REASON FOR REFERRAL:

The murder of a woman in a Salinas ranch, the examinee had more than one

case of physical damage to other individuals.

3. BACKGROUND OF THE ISSUE:

Lennie, the examinee, was brought by his work partners which were also

interviewed: George, Slim and Carlson. The main reason for this was a murder

by committed by the examinee, he broke the neck of a woman in a barn from the

farm where he worked, his partners and he assure that it wasn’t intentional. The

examinee kept saying that he was only “petting” the hair of the woman until she

started to struggle and died, apparently he was in a state of panic.

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There is another important event mentioned in the interview with his work

partners which is related to his behaviour in the previous one. They mentioned

Lennie was once taking part on a fight with one of his work partners and he

wouldn’t defend himself in most of the fight, but when he did, he wouldn’t let go

the other guy, this caused serious physical damage to his partner. According to

the examinee and his partners he didn’t know exactly what was happening at that

moment, he said he was scared.

4. PERSONAL AND FAMILY HISTORY:

Lennie’s family was not found and neither Lennie nor the other interviewed knew

about any relative to him. Lennie kept talking about his aunt Clara who seemed

to be his adoptive mother.

His work partner George provided more information about Lennie’s background.

When he was a child, he lived in an orphanage, apparently his parents left him

there in consequence of economic problems. Aunt Clara adopted Lennie when

he was 10 years old. George said that his aunt Clara died some years ago, since

she died George took care of Lennie because he couldn’t take care of himself.

George doesn’t have a place to live so Lennie and him travel together as migrant

farms workers.

5. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON BEHAVIOUR:

Lennie is a tall person and described by the workers interviewed as a strong guy,

although not aggressive at all. When he was interviewed, he often looked like he

was looking at emptiness, weakly smiling. He probably gets easily distracted by

his thoughts. When answering questions his language was coherent but his

pronunciation wasn’t that good.

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The examinee was cooperative with the questions, he mentioned that he

answered all of them because George told him to do so. He cared a lot about his

partner George and kept asking about him during the interview.

George revealed more things about Lennie’s usual behaviour: “He likes to pet

soft things; I always catch him carrying mice in his hand but they are usually dead

by that time” “The real problem is when he pets things which aren’t animals, once

we had to flee from Weed because he attempted to “pet” a woman’s dress”

Lennie’s mindset is similar as if he were a child, he doesn’t understand some

abstract concepts, he believes in anything easily, he even acts as a kid and has

a habit of petting soft things. Another important fact to add is that he follows orders

of whatever George tells him to do, like if he were his father. George reaffirmed

this idea when he declared: “I once told him to throw himself to the river and he

did”

Word count: 600

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 “I declare that this work is my own work and is the final version. I have

acknowledged each use of the words or ideas of another person, whether

written, oral or visual”