Inside Out 2
Taking a blog post detour into the world of culture this month. I know that’s not normally my jam, but when Inside Out 2 came out, I dropped everything and crashed my daughters’ playdate to see it immediately (Don’t worry, I sat in the back and didn’t speak to them).
I’ll get this out of the way: I loved it.
As an anxiety therapist, I was really worried about the way the folks at Pixar were going to portray Anxiety. I shouldn’t have been - at some point (spoiler alert), when Riley, the main character, has a panic attack, I literally shrieked because the portrayal was so spot on. That’s also the point when I realized that there were clearly psychologists consulting for the movie, and then forced my family to wait through the end credits to find out who they were. Bonus: there’s a short post-credits scene.
With pretty much every new patient, we take the time to discuss what emotions are: how they work, what their purpose is, why people have them.
Inside Out 2 portrayed this idea so beautifully: every emotion has a reason, and they’re all trying to help.
If I could shout one message about anxiety from the rooftops, it would be that it keeps us safe from danger. It’s a smoke alarm that protects us from fires! But sometimes, it’s too sensitive, and does its job a bit too well, pushing us to avoid safe situations. The Anxiety character was a fantastic representative of this idea: she’s trying to help! She always has a plan! She actually does make Riley better at hockey initially! But it’s at a cost - and the more Anxiety runs the show, the more Riley moves away from her values (like her friends), and things start to move out of control, leading to a panic attack. Which - can we talk about that for a minute? The fight, flight or freeze response is the way our bodies respond to anxiety. I love the choice to show Anxiety as frozen - because that really happens to people with anxiety! Then, Riley uses mindfulness to bring her awareness to her senses - to the hockey rink, the sights, and the sounds, as she lets the anxiety pass (because it always passes).
Some other thoughts:
It was interesting that the movie distinguished between Anxiety and Fear - generally, I think of those as the same emotion, with fear about danger you’re currently facing, and anxiety about potential danger. But it worked for me, I’m not complaining.
When I talk to patients about emotions, I generally start with the “basics” - happy, sad, anxiety/fear (more on this below), anger, disgust, and surprise. So good job, Inside Out, for nailing 5 of those 6. I wasn’t sold on the choice of the new set when the movie started - Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, and Ennui. I mean, why those? The choice to “expand the console” at puberty was spot on - but these emotions (with the exception of anxiety) could probably have been substituted with a bunch of others and been equally accurate. What really struck me was when I saw the behavioral manifestations of those new emotions. Watching shame, envy, and ennui “take the controls” of Riley’s emotions was so perfectly teenager that I understood the choice completely. Anyone who has had a teenager has been subject to Ennui’s chill, and Shame’s all-encompassing hold.
I love, love, love a visual metaphor. Inside Out already has been a gift for therapists everywhere. Trying to describe emotions as “inside you but not you” was difficult even for adults - along comes Inside Out and provides this fantastic representation of different emotions at a console. Extending this metaphor to puberty - making the console more complicated, introducing new emotions, was such a great way to talk about this tricky life stage.