Personality Development of Patrick Jane

Introduction

This is a discussion on the character Patrick Jane portrayed by Simon Baker from the show The Mentalist, which is currently in its last season on CBS. The Mentalist follows the tales of Patrick Jane, a guy with extraordinary gifts for observation. Patrick Jane is a mentalist. According to the show’s producers, a mentalist is someone who uses mental acuity, hypnosis, and suggestion. A master manipulator of thoughts and behavior. The development of the show’s main character has been very well documented throughout the past seven seasons and provides an excellent basis for personality analysis.

Patrick was formerly a consultant with the fictitious California Bureau of Investigation. He had a knack for solving crimes in unusual ways. His powers of observation, inductive and deductive reasoning, as well as general mischief, all played a role in how he went about solving crime. He often disregarded protocol and boundaries in his capacity as a consultant with the CBI, which landed him in trouble quite frequently. Despite this, he was a treasured member of the team who often closed cases where leads seemingly did not exist. He was motivated to join the CBI after the death of his wife, Angela Ruskin, by the criminal who goes by the name of “Red John”.

We can understand Patrick’s personality development through several theories including psychosocial, person-interactionist, and interpersonal theory. There is more than enough background information on Patrick to know where he came from and where he is going. Most traits are relatively consistent throughout a life, and this is the case with regards to his intelligence. Patrick is often seen as both caring and standoffish as well as angry and vindictive when it comes to seeking revenge for his dead family members. Patrick’s development, his situation, and the people who are around him have all played a role in the development of his personality and during the course of the show, and his character has changed dramatically. Due to the character development of the writers of The Mentalist, it is possible to understand things about him more so than you can any other characters. Patrick did not become who he is overnight. It has been a long process that started with the carnival and has continued past his independent career as a psychic, a consultant with the CBI, and lastly a consultant with the FBI.

Biography

Patrick’s life had an unusual upbringing. He was raised in the carnival with his father, Alex Jane. Around the age of 16, he ran a sideshow act as a psychic medium whose sole purpose was the con people out of their money by performing miracles. Alex claimed that Patrick had an ability called “x-ray eyes," which allowed him to see illnesses within people and also allowed him to recommend unusual cures for these ailments. His skills were nothing more than a culmination of excellent observational, inductive and deductive skills. At this stage in his life, Patrick had no other family members who were involved in his upbringing. What is known is that Alex Jane wore a ring, but his mother was never in the picture, which led people to believe that she was either dead or had abandoned them.

Patrick’s carnival career as a psychic came to an end when his father attempted to get him to scam a woman and her dying granddaughter. His father pushed him to sell her a stone for a lot of money that would do nothing for her. Patrick could not consciously do this, but his father threatened and forced him to do it. Patrick’s dad continuously exploited him for his skills in order to make money. At one point in time, Alex was investigated by California’s Children’s Protection Agency and Patrick was interviewed about his father’s treatment.

Due to the carnival always moving, he never attended school. His whole life has been spent traveling from destination to destination. Very little else is known about Patrick’s upbringing and of the other stories shared, Sean Barlow who is a psychic and former friend of Patrick’s father mentioned that his grandfather and Alex’s grandfather came to the United States together from Ireland. Sean believed that Patrick’s dad was an evil man who took advantage of other people. Sean was well aware that Patrick’s family were not genuine clairvoyants, and it was affirmed that Sean and his family were indeed real clairvoyants and had telepathic powers. At this point in the show, Sean mentioned Patrick’s father in passing, alluding to the fact that Alex had already passed away.

Patrick escaped working for the carnival when he met his wife-to-be, Angela Ruskin. Her family was also part of the same carnival. After they had left, Angela’s family looked at it as a betrayal of their way of life. This also led to the estrangement of Patrick from his father. After they were married, there was no other contact with Alex or his wife’s family except for Angela’s brother, Danny Ruskin, who was a con man that re-entered Patrick’s life later on in the season after his wife’s death.

Early Life

Much of Patrick’s past has been revealed by way of flashbacks and dialog. One of these flashbacks involved Patrick lending his assistance to the police in order to catch Red John. In this show, he also appeared to contact members’ of the audience dead relatives. During the show, he referred to Red John as “ugly and sad.” Jane was very confident in his abilities but was not cognizant of the consequences of his actions. As a result, Red John killed his wife and daughter, Charlotte after the show was aired.

This left Patrick riddled with guilt because he believed that he was the cause of his family being murdered. As a result of the death of his family, Patrick had a mental breakdown that led to him being admitted to a mental asylum for six months. After he had been released, he figured out a way to purge his record of his breakdown so that it would not affect him adversely. The only person aware of Patrick’s mental breakdown was the head of the CBI, Virgil Minelli, and he did not release this information to the team even after he joined as a consultant. Prior to the death of Patrick’s family, his wife Angela had begged him to get out of the psychic game according to Samuel Bosco.

Working with the CBI

Six months after Patrick’s release from the mental asylum, he decided to approach the California Bureau of Investigation to solicit information about the Red John case involving his wife and daughter. He was denied. However, he quickly became an asset, and at the request of Teresa Lisbon, which would become his partner, he was allowed to help the California Bureau of Investigation to catch the murderer of Victor Dellinger. Around this time, Patrick had regained his positive self-regard and figured that the same skills that led to the death of his family could also be used for good in helping solve crimes. Since Patrick was not allowed to look at the Red John files, he concocted a way to provoke one of the CBI members, Steve Hannigan and managed to get assaulted by him. In order to avoid any legal matters, Minelli allowed Patrick to look through the files. After his initial assistance in solving the murder of Mr. Dellinger, Minelli was impressed. For this reason, he offered Patrick a position as a consultant with the CBI.

Patrick had a reputation of charismatic, cocky, charming, and at sometimes very annoying, but he was well respected by his colleagues. At times, he used his talents as a threat by withholding them in order to manipulate Gale Bertram, who was the director of the CBI at the time. Patrick had tunnel vision when it came to catching Red John and has stated on more than one occasion that catching and killing the person who murdered his family is his top priority, even at the expense of his life and freedom.

Because of this experiences and the death of his family, Patrick often seems reckless. However, his actions and how he goes about linking and discovering clues is very crucial in the murder investigations that he’s attempting to solve. Patrick keeps up a facade of happiness, but it is very apparent that he deeply misses his wife and child. He refuses to discuss them at any given time and often changes the subject when it is brought up. His guilt behind their death has led to issues sleeping. Aside from avoiding any emotional attachment to anyone, he also dislikes any show of affection, especially touching or hugging. All physical contact, aside from the standard handshake is off limits.

Despite his disposition, Patrick seems to have a very particular connection with children, and he is often anonymously generous to other victims of crimes. One such show of compassion is when he paid for a liver transplant of a victim whose daughter was killed by anonymously donating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry and cash.

Patrick uses a variety of techniques in solving crimes. He tends to push people’s buttons whether they are a suspect or not. Sometimes, he just does it to annoy the person if he doesn’t like them. One such situation involved a detective who disregarded Patrick’s skills, and Patrick used the power of suggestion to make the guy believe that a dead rat was in his pocket. The detective felt it so much that he was never able to wear that suit coat again. Patrick’s only weapon is his mental acuity. He has an aversion to all arms and any physical confrontation, but he manages always to get punched in the nose by pushing people’s buttons. There are a few exceptions to this behavior. Several times throughout the season, he was forced to defend himself and by the end of the first season, and he killed a police officer who worked for Red John in order to save Teresa. After he fired the gun, he quickly dropped it as if it were red hot. Patrick has used his ability to manipulate many types of people, including psychologists. In one episode, Patrick successfully manipulates Luther Wainwright, a forensic psychologist, in order to capture a suspect. As a result, Wainwright infers that Patrick is a clinical psychopath.

Prior to the death of his family, Patrick purported himself as being psychic. This was his livelihood. It wasn’t until after the death of his family that he openly admitted to being a fraud. Many doubted this because of his uncanny ability to cold read people. Patrick’s main skills revolve around his abilities of observation and seemingly unending knowledge of human behavior, which is comparative to those of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, which served as inspiration for the Patrick Jane character. Patrick’s logical standpoint typical baffles others and frequently he figures out a case long before revealing whom the actual perpetrator is. People who are unfamiliar with Patrick’s work as a consultant typically write him off as a phony psychic. However, due to the caliber of his work, Patrick is often given the lead on investigations.

Although his antics leads to many exasperated sighs and eye rolling, the team he is on typically falls in line behind him when he has a hunch or lead. They usually do the grunt work of the investigation without complaint. It is the case that Lisbon, who is the team lead, will ask for his take on any crime before making any moves. Over time, the rest of the team has done the same and usually defers to him once they arrive at the scene of a crime; before he goes off on his own to solve the case.

Personality

As mentioned earlier, Patrick has a playful yet cocky personality. He has a high disregard for authority and usually gets in trouble for disobeying the laws or flat out breaking them. His method of solving cases is highly unorthodox, and they often meet the disapproval of his coworkers. Despite this fact, Patrick is considered to be one of the best detectives in California and other agencies have solicited his skills, including the FBI after the CBI is dissolved.

Patrick’s happy demeanor is overshadowed by the guilt of the death of his wife and child, and this theme is frequently revisited. After the Red John case is taken from Patrick’s team, Red John has the team’s assistant, Rebecca Anderson, kill the team responsible for taking on the case. The message given to Patrick on behalf of Red John is that it would make him happy because the case would go back to Patrick’s team. This in turn increases the guilt even more so.

Patrick’s aversion to weapons only extends to everyday situations, but not to Red John and extreme circumstances. One such situation is when Patrick met a man who he believed to be Red John, and Patrick shot him to avenge his family. It turned out that the man was not Red John, but another accomplice of his. We learned at this time that Patrick would use deadly force without the blink of an eye. Several other situations revealed themselves in which Patrick took the same action.

As mentioned earlier, one psychologist believed Patrick to be a psychopath, but Patrick shows a regard for human life and the victims of crimes. He often goes out of his way to help out people anonymously. When people find out that he is the benefactor of the good deeds they were the recipients of, he does his best to avoid the situation as he feels he does not need thanks or the occasional hug that follows. It is revealed that Patrick has feelings for his fellow teammate and leader, Teresa Lisbon, but he does not act on those feelings for fear of making her a target. However, by the time the CBI is closed and they both start working with the FBI, their feelings for each other begin to develop into something more than a working relationship. Patrick has had several romantic relationships that all ended in the women being killed.

Patrick’s intelligence and charisma are the only tools he uses to get close to Red John. Often setting himself up to be a target in order to reach his goal. Patrick is well-read on Carl Jung and has an in-depth knowledge of the psyche as well as other psychological disciplines. Patrick’s character and behavioral characteristics lead viewers to believe that he also has very high emotional intelligence. And from this, several things can be deduced about his personality.

Psychosocial Development

Freud’s theory of psychosexual development has always had a foothold in personality development. Freud argued that human behavior was the result of three components of the mind: id, ego, and superego. The majority of his focus was on the unconscious conflicts that shaped our personality and behavior. Though Freud paved the way for many of his contemporaries, there were those who disagreed with him. One such psychologist is Erik Erickson, who developed the theory of psychosocial development (Erikson, 1956).

We have very little background on Patrick prior to the age of 16. However, this does not keep me from hypothesizing what happened in his earlier life as a result of his current behaviors. For instance, the first stage of Erickson’s psychosocial development addresses the issue of trust versus mistrust (Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998). We know from Patrick’s interaction with his team and other people that he puts a tremendous amount of trust in the people he interacts. There are rarely those he doesn’t trust and on occasion this has gotten him in precarious situations. As a result, even with the death of his family, he still has a sense of hope, which is the virtue gained from that stage.

Through the course of the show, Patrick exhibits from a young age that he is capable of taking care of and doing things on his own. Stage two of psychosocial development addresses autonomy versus shame (Domino & Affonso, 2011). In many of Patrick’s interactions, he has shown the ability that he is more than capable of governing himself, and he acts freely, often at the expense of his team. This theme plays out throughout the show as his coworkers are always wondering what he is up to, and he continues doing whatever it is he does without telling them. Patrick’s ability to take initiative is very apparent in how he solves cases, which shown in him knowing that he has a sense of purpose. Even when all has seemingly been lost, he doesn’t give in to the guilt that plague him over the death of his family.

Patrick can take over investigations and lead them without the assistance of anyone else on his team. He was also done incredible feats such as go through case files on his own time and memorizes important details about them. He has shown himself to be one of the best and more competent workers that the CBI has. So it is safe to safe that Patrick has no feelings of inferiority, and this has been shown consistently throughout his career as a psychic and as a detective.

We now come to the age where the show picks up at with flashbacks of his youth; he is at the age of 16. At this stage, the conflict is ego identity versus role confusion (Domino & Affonso, 2011). It is around this age that Patrick learns about what roles he will occupy as an adult. Fidelity, or being able to commit one’s self to others, is the principal virtue at this stage. It is known that Patrick sticks with being a psychic medium and earning a livelihood that way well into his 30s up until the death of his wife and child. He was very consistent with this professional and even transitioned it to his subsequent work with the CBI and FBI.

The story of Patrick joining the CBI takes place at stage six, which is where the conflict of generativity versus isolation exists (Hamachek, 1990). What we know of Patrick is that he met his wife while they were young. They had been together all of this time. They even had a daughter. This was both of their first and only marriage up until this point. So I believe it is safe to say that he learned the virtue of love. His love for his wife and his daughter is apparent in his interactions with his co-workers, and it is continually played on as he never removes his wedding ring. Even the slightest mention of them causes him to change his demeanor.

As the season comes to an end, Patrick in now in stage seven of psychosocial development. This stage is where a person experiences the conflicts of generativity versus stagnation (Hamachek, 1990). He is well established in his career, and he has been doing it for years, but he is now at the time where he wants to retire. He is only in his 40s, but he does not wish to see any more of his friends die. Michelle Vega, a young FBI agent who was on his team, had been shot and killed, and that pushed him over the edge. He wants to settle down in a relationship with Lisbon, who he has been dating for a while now by this time. But the work that both of them do is very dangerous. And sometimes it means being shot at or being killed.

Though the season has yet to end, I have a feeling that Patrick will settle down in a relationship and live out his days. Patrick is independently wealthy, and he spends very little money. Before he joined the FBI, he was on an island in Mexico enjoying himself after he fled the United States when he killed Red John. For this reason, I feel it is safe to say that he will develop the virtue of career despite no longer working again.

Personal-Situation Interactionist Theory

One of the things we often hear from Patrick’s team is that they never know what he’s going to do next. This forms the basis of Mischel’s theory that shows that situations influence behavior (Mischel, 1979). Just because a person behaves one way in a given situation is not a determinate of how they will always behave. Previous research focused on traits as primary indicators of behavior (Epstein & O'Brien, 1985). Mischel’s social behavior theory proposed that environmental, social, and physical forces are important in shaping our behavior (Endler, 1975). Mischel’s arguments lie between personality and behavior and the size of the relations (Epstein & O'Brien, 1985). Mischel figured it did not make much sense to discuss traits because correlations of behavior and traits were only around 0.30 or slightly higher. Mischel felt that researchers in the field of personality research were looking in the wrong places for consistency (Endler, 1975). Personality traits are indeed important factors, but will it predict behavior?

One of the things that we learn about Patrick is that he treats every situation differently. There are times when he is working on a case, and he shows a lot of compassion for the victims. There are other times in which he shows no sympathy or positive regard at all. In one such example, a bank robbery suspect killed one of Patrick’s colleagues. When the FBI and other authorities located them and surrounded the house, the emotions of the team were very high strung, and they were out for blood. Patrick was in the process of trying to get the robbers to turn on each other so that none of the hostages would be hurt in the process. Despite Patrick working on that, the FBI decided to raid the place anyway. As a result, Patrick walked to the front door with his hands up and convinced the robbers to release one of the hostages.

Patrick would not put himself in danger in these situations. Usually, he would sit out and let his team do what they needed to do. However, the defining issue was that there was an elderly lady in the house who had health problems. The situation changed the way that he would normally behave in these matters. As such, he put his life on the line, not knowing how the situation would end. After the last hostage was out, he was able to get the robbers to turn on each other, and he was caught in the line of fire, but managed not to get hurt.

In this situation, we can see how Patrick’s status and personality traits interact to influence behavior. This perspective is known as interactionism (Ekehammar, 1974). The assumption is that reality is complicated. Researchers believe that behavior is the result of a collaboration between the situation a person is in and their personality (Ekehammar, 1974). As a consequence, both of these variables have an influence on and serve as a predictor of behavior. Taking this in mind, Patrick’s personality traits of being caring, calm, spontaneous, and otherwise may have led to an accurate prediction that he would have made a move like that in that particular situation, because a person’s individual traits may influence how powerful of a predictor of behavior it is.

Interpersonal theory

We also understand from Sullivan that personality is formed by way of their social context and that without other humans to interact with, we’d have no personality (Kiesler, 1997). The development of our personality, according to Sullivan, is also contingent on an individual’s ability to establish an intimate relationship with another person (Kiesler, 1997). He also stated that the purpose of all behavior is to get needs met through interpersonal interactions and decrease or avoid anxiety (Kiesler, 1997).

Patrick’s personality is a culmination of all of the different people that he currently works and has collaborated with. During his carnival career, he was around people who were seemingly hard working and close knit. They also con artists. The same individuals were considered family for him in later episodes and were there when he needed their assistance. It’s one of the rare times that we see Patrick hug someone willingly. His interactions with the team, especially those of Abbot, who is the head of the FBI team he serves on, and Rigsby, Cho and Grace of the CBI. When Patrick first came on board, he acted and behaved as an outsider. He kept his distance and refused to let anyone get close to him. The longer he worked with the members of his team, the more you begin to see Patrick change from being standoffish and distant to being more caring and compassionate.

Conclusion

There are no doubt that Patrick’s experiences from the time that he was a child up until the time he was in his 40s had an impact on his life. His personality is made up of a culmination of experiences. The bulk of his experiences that made him who he is today started with the carnival. Being exposed to being a psychic medium and cold reading people set him up for what would later become his career. His observational knowledge and ability to deconstruct people and situations helped him to get successful at it.

These same experiences allowed him to figure out the pieces of the puzzle when trying to solve crimes. The cockiness that he exhibited, the avoidant nature he had, and even his playful side were all a result of his upbringing in the carnival. He needed to show certain personality traits in order to be successful in his art. It required a lot of time with people and interacting with them. It could be argued that had he not spent time in the carnival and performed as a psychic that his personality would not be what it is today.

We also learned that as a result of the situations that he was in, his personality developed from one that was carefree and free of consequences to one that was a bit more cautious after the death of his wife. There were times he went and did his own thing, but he was well aware of the consequences of his actions. This in turn affected his behavior. The hostage standoff was a turning point for Patrick because despite knowing him for several years, no one could have predicted that he would behave in that way. It turned out that he has a low regard for his life but a high regard for others than his.

Patrick Jane is a very complex individual, as we all are. His personality, his behavior, and how he acts in different situations is reflective of his many experiences. Through the show, his intelligence remained consistent, but his personality traits always seemed to change as he expression tension and anxiety throughout his career. As great of a detective as he was, I am sad to see the show finally coming to an end. There is still much to be learned from Mr. Jane.

References

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