The characters of "Seinfeld" had their share of issues, and a psychiatry professor at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has asked his med students to diagnose the mental maladies of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer as a part of his class.
Anthony Tobia, an associate professor of psychiatry, assigns his class of third- and fourth-year medical students to watch the 6 p.m. episode of "Seinfeld" on TBS ever Monday and Thursday evening, according to NJ.com. The next morning in class, they identify and discuss the psychiatric disorders that they observed in the previous night's episode.
The required viewing and discussion is part of what Tobia calls "Psy-Feld." Although not a course, it is a part of the professor's training for his students.
"You have a very diverse group of personality traits that are maladaptive on the individual level," Tobia told NJ.com about the "Seinfeld" characters. "When you get these friends together the dynamic is such that it literally creates a plot: Jerry's obsessive compulsive traits combined with Kramer's schizoid traits, with Elaine's inability to forge meaningful relationships and with George being egocentric."
Tobia has created a database for all 180 episodes of the NBC comedy that ran for nine seasons in the 1990s. He has detailed teaching points for each episode and claims every character can be used for "Psy-Feld."
The Rutgers professor penned an academic paper on five of Elaine's boyfriends and found they all displayed characteristics of delusional disorder. He also called Kramer's friend and Jerry's nemesis, Newman, "very sick," according to NJ.com.
"Newman's sense of self, his meaning in life, is to ensure that he frustrates Jerry," Tobia said. "We actually have talked about Newman in that context and related him to Erik in 'The Phantom of the Opera.' The Phantom, while he starts out as being the tutor to the Prima Donna, actually has his life change and he is bent on revenge and that becomes who he is... and that's Newman."
Some of Tobia's students struggled to see past the humor of the episodes, but have come to see the psychiatric problems plaguing the "Seinfeld" gang.
Fourth-year med student Jason Breig previously saw George as just funny, but a few episodes in he started to see the character, played by Jason Alexander, from a different perspective.
"You start watching and you're like, 'What 'is' going on with George?' fourth-year med student Jason Breig told NJ.com.
Tobia also screens the Coen brothers' film "Fargo" during a monthly elective class and has the students live-tweet the characters' potential mental disorders. Their diagnoses appear at the bottom of the screen.
