They say Seinfeld is "a show about nothing." However, it may be possible to learn a lot more from the beloved '90s sitcom than we originally thought.
Students at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School are using Seinfeld to learn about psychiatric disorders. Associate Professor of Psychiatry Anthony Tobia coined the term "Psy-feld" in 2009, and now he uses the sitcom as a teaching tool as part of the students' training, right before their morning rounds, according to a feature story about the teaching method on NJ.com.
As part of their training, the third- and fourth-year students in the hospital's psychiatric rotation watch the 6 p.m. episode of Seinfeld on TBS every Monday and Thursday. They then discuss the psychopathology they saw the characters demonstrate in the episode.
"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 told NJ.com.
But don't worry. "Psy-feld" has the minor Seinfeld characters covered, too. Tobia also told NJ.com that "Newman's sense of self, his meaning in life, is to ensure that he frustrates Jerry." Tobia even wrote a whole paper on "peripheral Seinfeld characters" to demonstrate how their behavior on the show could be used to discuss the various subtypes of Delusional Disorder.
In case you're wondering how exactly "Psy-feld" works, the NJ.com article gives us a little taste of what the med students take away from each episode. In a discussion about one episode in which Jerry's girlfriend doesn't like George, two students argue over whether George displays nacrissism while focusing on trying to get Jerry's girlfriend to like him rather than his own.
"I wouldn't say he is completely narcissistic because he actually starts to enjoy the idea that she doesn't like him," said a third-year student named Ryan Townsend. "Narcissists can't stand the idea that people don't like them."
This isn't the first time Seinfeld has been used to mold our country's brightest minds. The State University of New York at Oswego has offered a course called the "Sociology of Seinfeld."
Now doesn't that just make you go back and watch the entirety of Seinfeld and search for the deeper meaning behind it all?
