Inside Out 2, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Emotions, Character, Inner World, Art and Science
Inside
out was a surprisingly psychologically sophisticated film. I saw it with the younger Reluctant Daughter - we both loved it - and I loved having an evening with her. She is now grown and on her own, living far away, and, after asking permission from her, I decided to go to the theater with the Reluctant Wife and our older Reluctant daughter to see Inside Out 2. After watching it, I commented to the Reluctant Wife and Daughter that Inside Out 2 was a disruptive film. Both of them
had enjoyed it, as did I, but unlike our last venture to the theater together (we
went to see Appropriate
on stage in New York which generated intrafamilial controversy), this seemed to
be just a lighthearted excursion into the world of adolescence. What could be disruptive? I responded that I was disappointed that
Pixar seems to be more on top of some aspects of development than I am, and
this is concerning to me.
I will forego framing the plot of Inside Out 2, though I
anticipate that my descriptions of the psychology of the film will necessarily contain
spoilers. Briefly, the film articulates
the experiences of a week in the life of Riley, the preteen in Inside Out, as
she navigates a week in her life between eighth grade and high school, culminating
in a weekend at hockey camp where she is attempting to make the high school
team as a freshman. I am not intending
this post for people who are thinking about going to the film, but, as is often
the case, for people who have seen it.
I must admit that seeing the film in the theater was not
pleasant. After sitting through a half
hour onslaught of commercials for Disney Parks and films, seeing the Disney castle
appear to announce the beginning of this film released both relief and a wish
to defile the Castle in some permanent way – to clarify that it is not, in
fact, a place of conviviality and connection, but a series of isolated towers
that seem designed to imprison rather than free those who have been captivated by
it…
Which is an interesting introduction to the film. This is a coming of age film – or, more
focally, a surviving early adolescence film.
But the twist is that the emancipation that this film envisions is not
from an external oppressor (Disney, in this case, or perhaps her parents locking Riley in an isolated tower), but rather she is being freed from the clutches of being
controlled by her own emotions. I may be
a slow learner, but I did not achieve what is portrayed in this film until long
after adolescence (OK, truth be told, I am still trying to negotiate the
transition being portrayed, and maybe that has something to do with my not
being up to the same developmental speed as Pixar).
The genius of the Inside Out (now apparent) franchise is
that inner world is run by basic emotions that compete for access to the
control system. In the original film,
five emotions are in competition: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear. Emotions are depicted as being in competition for access to the consciousness not just of Riley, but of all of the other characters in the
movie. In other words, this is the basic state of being human. This mechanistic depiction of human functioning is actually quite consistent with current psychoneuroanalytic concepts of the functioning of the mind. In this second film, the original five emotions have been joined by Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui.
Having new emotions appear – especially with the onset of
puberty – is brilliant. It is not just
that the world feels MORE intrusive, abrasive and difficult to manage – it is
not just a matter of degree – the world has a different quality. It feels different. We are attuned to aspects of the world that
didn’t matter much before because we have new antennae – new feelers that are
capable of picking up new vibrations in the world.
Of course, within the Inside Out world it would have been
nice to have been aware of these additional feelings that come on board later,
as the parents and other adults could have been equipped with them in the first movie as they
are in this current edition, but we will give some artistic license to realize
that it is not just Riley that is developing, but the Pixar people.
That said, it makes sense to compare the Pixar feeling
states with the feeling networks that are the current scientifically accepted
core neurological states. Jaak Panksepp’s
research has led us to think of seven feeling states:
1. Fear.
This feeling does not come into play when we feel safe. When it gets activated, we freeze or flee
from an external threat.
2. Rage.
Frustration occurs when things get in the way of accomplishing a
goal. If the person who is getting the
way of accomplishing a goal is someone that we love, things get complicated
(see panic below).
3. Lust.
Freud thought that all pleasure was sexual. We have learned that there are many pleasures
and we can think of this as an acquisitive drive. I want x.
4. Seeking. We might think of this as
curiosity. I am longing to come in
contact with what is unknown to me.
5. Panic/Grief.
This emotional state is based on our need to cared for. When we are in danger of losing loved ones,
we freak out.
6. Care/Concern.
Not only do we need to be cared for, we need to care for others. Our hearts ache when those we care for are in
danger.
7. Playfulness.
This emotion is an important part of our being pack animals and learning
how to interact with other members of the pack.
8. Disgust.
(I said there would be seven, but disgust is sometimes included as an eighth – and since
Pixar has this as a character, let’s just add it in).
The Pixar feeling state that is most glaringly missing from
this group is Joy. Playfulness, in my
mind, may be the closest feeling state to the character Joy in the Inside Out movies.
But in the model of the mind that Mark
Solms proposes – one that is based both in current neuropsychological
thinking and in Freudian theory – joy is, weirdly, the absence of feeling. A state we could call the nirvana state, when
all systems are go and there is no feeling that is tugging at conscious saying,
“you need to take care of this!”
The interesting thing about both the Pixar list and the Panksepp/Solms
list is that they are both woefully incomplete.
One of the fun internet games is, “What additional emotion would you
have included that Pixar did not in Inside Out 2?” After we watched the movie, the Reluctant Daughter
posed this to us – I answered guilt and The Reluctant Wife answered shame. Thinking about it now, I am surprised that
Pixar didn’t include love. Where would
Disney, or any other studio, be without love?
Isn’t love what makes the world go round?
Panksepp and Solms propose that the manifold feeling states
that we experience are essentially complex combinations of the basic emotions. Sternberg’s
triangular theory of love is an example of this kind of thinking. Sternberg proposes that we can describe
different kinds of love (erotic love, parental love, companionate love) based
on the relative strengths of three components – two of them emotional and one
cognitive. He suggests that the levels
of passionate attraction (lust), levels of intimacy (Panic/Grief and/or Care/Concern) and
levels of commitment (the cognitive component) can distinguish between
different types of what we call love.
Solms also suggests that some emotional states are the result not of concordant but of conflicting feelings. So guilt is the
result of a conflict between rage and attachment.
Because the emotions in the Pixar world are not pure, but
characters being voiced by complex people, we see the feeling states develop across
the course of the movie. Joy moves in
the first movie to acknowledge the need for sadness, and in the second movie to
acknowledge the importance of anxiety. But
it is not just joy that develops, anger also does, becoming more thoughtful –
more strategic. All of this is occurring
in the context of the development of Riley’s character.
The central plot in the internal world of Inside Out 2 revolves around the
development of the character structure.
The original emotions have helped Riley develop a seemingly solid,
desirable character in her childhood – the sense that she is a good
person. This has helped her in the
outside world. Anxiety demonstrates that
this is too brittle a character to carry her through adolescence – where relationships
demand much more cunning and ennui. The
original emotions are banished from the control room and set off on a quest to
recover the “good girl” character and are in a race to return that character to
the determining position in the control room before the new, complex character
that is constructed of various “not so good” strands becomes solidified.
Ultimately, the solution to traversing the vast distances in
Riley’s mind in the short time afforded to the banished feeling states
necessitates their unleashing the suppressed memories that they have so
carefully hidden from Riley’s consciousness.
This tidal wave of undesirable memories and experiences floods the area
that connects to the character structure and the replacement of the twisted
character with the original pristine character fails and a new hybrid character
structure, one that is kaleidoscopic rather than static, emerges.
This highpoint in the movie made me wonder how many of the
writers are engaged in Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. This therapy is based on an assumption that
the mind is not unitary, but made up of dissociated elements – the treatment
has appropriated the language of Multiple Personality Disorder (now call Dissociative
Identity Disorder in an effort to hide it from the public) to refer to aspects
of the self as “alters” – short for alternative personalities.
And don’t we all have alters?
Aren’t we a different person when we talk on the phone with our Dad than
when we talk with our Mom? Or our children? Or our
sibling? Or our boss? And yet, aren't we the same
person from one day to the next? Isn’t
it sort of a miracle that we have relatively constant sense of ourselves at
all?
Inside Out 2 nicely takes this potentially disorienting and shattering characterization of our character as kaleidoscopic and turns it into a lovely visual representation of a talisman of ourselves that can shine different colors and forms depending on the needs of a given situation. At a sleepover, we can be less mature, while with cunning friends we can feign indifference to material that we care deeply about, all in the interests of maintaining the integrity of the whole self.
Perhaps the central miracle illustrated in this film, then, is the relationship between Riley and her emotions. In a weird moment, Joy is called back to the control panel. If I overlay Solms' concept of Joy as the absence of feeling - or perhaps the drive of the core self to achieve a state of homeostasis where we are using our self to maximum capacity - Riley bypasses the wily anxiety and turns to Joy as the character who should be in control of her actions. Isn't this something that we all aspire to? Isn't this something like the depiction of a peak experience - of self actualization? I both enjoyed and was just a little bit envious of Riley's ability to call forth Joy. Oh, that I may be able to do that more often in my own life!
To return to the brilliance of this work, the development of
a complex self involves not just the integration of various memories into a
complex whole, but the development of new means of sensing the world and
reacting to it. The research of Panksepp
– and Solms – has largely focused on the adult emotional system and, at least
as I have studied it, I have not been asking the question of how does this
system developed. Inside Out 2 nicely
corrects that oversight.
A complete theory of mind, as Freud pointed out 100 years ago,
requires an understanding of how that mind develops. What are the critical elements of that
development? How does it come online? And so, when we focus on various components
of that mind – cognition, emotion, character structure – how do those
components develop both as individual components, and in relationship with each
other.
I am not ready quite yet to cite Peter Docter and the rest of the Pixar team as my go to neurological consultants, but I appreciate their guidance as I work to create a working model of the minds that I work with both in the abstract and in the concrete world of the consulting room and engaging in the relationships with others that, in their best moments, bring me joy and allow me to connect the appropriate color of my character with the color that they are able to radiate at that particular moment. I am also appreciative of the development of my children that allows me to enjoy favorite and share favorite experiences and current versions of those experiences with each of them.
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