A professor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey is using unorthodox methods to teach students about psychiatric conditions. According to reporter Adam Clark, Prof. Anthony Tobia is using episodes of Seinfeld to illustrate patient characteristics that his future doctors will encounter.
A litany of quirky, nervous and narcissistic characters were featured over the course of nine seasons of Seinfeld. The show's main characters — Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer — were perhaps the best specimens.
"You have a very diverse group of personality traits," Prof. Tobia told NJ.com. "Jerry's obsessive compulsive traits combined with Kramer's schizoid traits, (...) Elaine's inability to forge meaningful relationships, and (...) George being egocentric."
Tobia started his "Psy-feld" teaching technique in 2009, more than a decade after the famous "show about nothing" ended its run on NBC.
Medical ethicist Art Caplan said he was skeptical about "Psy-feld's" usefulness.
"There's plenty of neuroses in evidence in Seinfeld, that's no doubt true." Caplan said Wednesday on Boston Public Radio. "Where I am at NYU, however, all you need to do is go shopping and you can see the same phenomena."
Caplan said the exercise was less about in-depth study, and more about gimmickry. "What kind of personality does George have when he doesn't care about anyone else? Blah blah blah. He's kinda narcissistic, okay."
Caplan was open to novel studies of mental illness. "It's fun if they can have a little bit of fun in the curriculum. That's fine," Caplan said.
The popularity of the show has continued well past its formal end. There are Seinfeld meetup groups, one-off commercials, and fan sites. Despite his misgivings, Caplan admitted that even he was, indeed, a lover of Seinfeld.
>> Art Caplan is the head of the division of medical ethics at NYU's Langone Medical Center. Caplan hosts the podcast Everyday Ethics, and joins Boston Public Radio on Wednesdays.
