Hook: Anxiety, Parenting, & Cluster B Diagnoses

Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.
My name is Bernie Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're
all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists who practice out of Chicago.
Even though we are licensed mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment
purposes and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture in all forms. Please
remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists, we aren't your therapist.
If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find a local mental
health provider. Hello. Today we're talking about Hook, which is one of
my favorite movies of all times. So I'm very excited. Before yes jump
into that, I'm going to throw to our guest. Well, hello everybody.
I am doctor Terry Sanderson. I'm a license psychologist out in Portland,
Oregon, and I am super excited to be here. Hook is one of
my favorite movies too. I actually have it on DVD. Like in my
case, It's very exciting, so I'm super excited to be here and share
with you guys in the experience of just dissecting this movie and seeing how it
helps other people think about mental health and eame movie I've been trying to make
us do for a while, and because it's one of my favorites, and
because there's so much in it. Even when we were I was watching,
I was like, God, what are we How are we going to pay
down what we talk about because there's so much. But the themes we are
going to touch upon today is anxiety, dissociation, parenting when you don't have
parents, trauma as always fulfill in that free space in your bingo boards.
Probably Batman somewhere, but I haven't decided where yet. I'm sure you'll figure
it out. Two flying dudes and one of them who should have been the
Riddler, and I will go to my grave with that. And then we're
also gonna be touching up on Hook and existentialism, identity stuff, grooming and
that kind of thing that we see in this movie. So, first off,
what is Hook? Hook is a sort of sequel esque story by Steven
Spielberg in which Peter Pan left Neverland at around twelve almost thirteen and grew up
and so where we find ourselves in this movie is now. He is a
middle aged man with two kids of his own, and he is sort of
a workaholic. I'm gonna call him like an asshole, but he's not not
one. And then his children get kidnapped by Captain Hook, so he has
to go back and remember who he was. So I think a big component
of this movie from like a psychological standpoint, jumping into Peter is the fact
that he does not remember anything about his life before he came to I guess
our world, so before the age of almost their team, he has no
recollection of who he is who or who he was. But I think it's
really interesting is he presents immediately as someone who's really anxious and irritable, and
his anxiety is all related to elements of his life before his current memories.
So it's all like flying open windows things like that. And so what do
you guys make of that in terms of his anxiety and what he's scared of
in this movie? The word of the day is dissociation. That is the
word of the day. Today's episode is brought to you by the letter D.
It is for dissociation perverts. Today is dissociation, and what we see
with Peter is largely essentially what could be argued is dissociative amnesia, where Peter
has had to enter a state where forgetting who he was was his pathway to
survival. So he did. And it's part of the argument I have that
supports that is it's not until he gets a bonk on the head, yeah,
that he remembers himself. Very movie esque, true, Oh this,
I mean it's very movie esque. Coming up with that diagnosis took me all
day to think about, because, as Brittany said off Mike, this is
a movie that is bound by the rules of magic, and last night checked
mental health is not so that we know of so far that we know of.
Some people may argue so and try to do so, so don't get
me started on crystals and oils, but I think it's important to take a
look at understanding that first and foremost, this is a movie bound by magic,
and the laws and rules of magic apply. And then magic always has
a price, and in this the price of letting go of your magic is
that you forget you ever had it, yeah, and who you were.
And when we look at fictional universes, it's always important, I think to
just mention that and remember that that as much as we enjoy doing exactly this,
that in this case, none of the examples are super perfect because magic
kind of interfered. Yes, for sure, we haven't said this in a
while, I feel like in an episode. But this is a classic case
of cinema. The movie Magic literally well, you know, in this movie.
So all of what we talk about psychologically is impacted by that. So
don't take anything we say is like, oh, that's how a dissociative person
is, or that's how a person going through this is. You know,
maybe everyone take this with a grain of crystal salt. Correct, yes,
because this movie does not accurately represent really what a dissociative amnesia looks like.
It's just more what's the closest thing that exists, And to me, it's
it's a dissociative amnesia because Peter essentially has over many many years, formed parts
to armor himself away from Peter Pan in order to become adult. Peter and
realized that when Wendy rejected him in order to fall in love with his with
her granddaughter, which he on first sight, we realized that Peter had to
Peter had to put away Peter Pan permanently forever in order to be accepted and
find a home. And he realized that this is this is what I want.
And sometimes sometimes we forget parts of ourselves. And we've seen many,
many a movie that cover this topic. History of Violence did a good job
of it. I think with Igo Mortenson that showed it maybe a little bit
more accurately, where someone is going to totally put away a part of himself.
But it's not this unconscious magic process. It is the I am actively
consciously choosing to put this part of me away, and it drains me every
day, to the point that my wife accuses me of being an authentic and
I think I'm trying not to confuse Eastern Promises and History of Violence. In
my mind, I think that's the right one. Well, in one of
them, Vigo mortensid fights naked, and that's Eastern promises, and I know
that off the top of my head. As much as like I did not
enjoy watching some waggling as that fight scene took off, it was the most
badass fight scene I ever seen, because that man just put it all out
there. He did all of it. But this, oh yeah, I
was not aware of this. There's a fight scene in that movie. I've
only seen it once where it's like a Russian bath house kind of thing him
in another kind of mafiat mafia guy John Wick style kind of fight, but
fully nude, so there's not look forward too. Yes, but I think
what's so interesting about this movie is, yeah, thinking, I think something
you had said that I really liked Tear, and I women make sure I
don't steal this from you, is that when you watch this when you were
younger, and I said that I agreed with the same thing as that Peter
as a grown up just seems like awful, like really like a dick dad,
like a like a just a super workaholic. Do she like trying to
do it all and not really being considerate person? But I think you put
it as watching it now as an adult and a clinician, I'm sure as
well, like seeing more of the anxiety piece to him. Yeah, there
was such a big difference between that juxtaposition of when I was younger I experienced
him. It has like an absent father who was angry a lot, and
now when I look at it, I look at somebody who is anxious and
in turmoil and is having irritability symptoms when things aren't going just right where he
can feel like he's in control and he's got things taken care of. So
he, you know, lashes out and yells when when things aren't going in
the right direction. And I don't experience that as him being an angry dad
anymore. I experience that now as like, oh, he's got so much
going on inside of him. He just he doesn't know how to look at
people and take care of things, even in that phone scene where he yells
at Jack and everybody to get out of thinking about boundaries, Like if you're
going to take a business phone call, you can have good boundaries to walk
away from where your family is at that point. You don't need to blow
up at everybody. You can. You can take that and be the responsible
adults here instead of expecting everybody to respond to you and care for you in
those moments. Yeah, and I think it struck me the same way.
It's definitely a movie full of nineties tropes to the max, or an early
nineties tropes to the max, like dad married to his cell phone. Now
you look at and be like, we're all married to our cell phone.
Um, but looking at that, you do see somebody who's that had very
very difficult time separating and is stuck in this workaholic mode. But the irritable
parts definitely don't feel like someone that is being an asshole to be an asshole
and push people away. It's only when he is overwhelmed that we see that
burst out of him, and that is important because that is a big difference.
People that are just angry and have a hard time empathizing with other people
wouldn't show up to the game at all. Yeah. Yeah, he wouldn't
try, so they wouldn't be trying so hard period. They would just say,
sorry, son, a big meeting came up, you know, good
luck, and I might still have my like assistant come to the game and
tape it for me as like a weird something I later can say that I
did my best. Yeah, But I think with that it was really him
trying to reconcile, trying to do two things at once, and that his
drive to work so hard did seem kind of really born out of anxiety.
Like taking that phone call, insisting upon that with Moira seemed really connected to
to a feeling of anxiety like I have to take this phone call. You
don't understand Brad needs to talk to me, which is through the phone out
of the window. He was like, well the vocal again. And I
think it does come from that irritability as anxiety of like, something really bad
is going to happen if I don't attend to this right away. Yeah,
I'm trying to control that from happening. I'm trying to make sure that I've
got this this thing and it's going to be done. I think he even
says like I shouldn't have even left without the deal being done, and he
does that, Yeah, that element of I can't I'm not there to do
the thing. It won't get done right, and everything's going to go to
chaos, and that none of that's acceptable. And there's so much throughout the
movie where he has to unlearn that piece of what I can control and what
I can't control and learn to stay present and in the moment to do those
things differently. Absolutely, And I think that a part of and a part
of me too, wonders if wonders of his experience kind of based on what
it's like for him to be Peter Pan, What's up? Remembers how everyone
kind of adores him and everyone thinks that he's right about everything, and he's
kind of he's a leader. He's a leader that everybody looks at. And
just wondering if if he gets a part of that from work, and if
he misses being if a part of himself missus being Peter Pan, and if
and if that's why work feels so important because it makes him feel like himself
or parts of it are parts of it do like, maybe not all of
it, but parts of it make him feel like himself. It's just something
that I thought of when I was watching it. It was just curious what
everybody's thoughts would be on that. I immediately thought about the elevator scene where
he's getting ready to get on the elevator and they do the little like phone
holster, you know, game with each other or like draw right, there's
a piece of that where he's still got that element of play. He you
know, is kind to people. He even tries to remember a bunch of
people's names, and then he tells a joke when he doesn't, like you
know, he's trying so hard to like like be that person, and it's
leaking out in places where you know, as an adult it may seem a
little bit more appropriate. But yeah, being thrown into that leadership role in
people adoring him, yeah, that really resonates with who he was as a
kid. And that kind of inspires a thought in me of that. And
something will dip into a little bit more later in the conversation is that he
grew up around peers, not around parents, and any adults that were present
were bad guys. And so I wonder as an adult now that he is
more comfortable around people that are the same age peers and being around his family,
and therefore being around children is just maybe more uncomfortable because and also having
to be the adult in a dynamic with kids, you know, Because I
think something we're all talking about is that even though he doesn't remember his past
or he's shutting it down, parts of it are bleeding through. Which is
which is not uncommon, is that even if you don't remember elements of your
past, elements of your past trauma, it can still bleed into your present
day functioning and things that make you anxious and things that trigger you. And
so I I think that's also prevalent to like why the things he's scared of.
Are the things he's scared of. I know, in the theme of
like the movie the Cinematic Idea, I'm sure it's just like callbacks, like
kind of threading in that he's Peter Pan. But that's interesting that he has
such an aversion to the things that he used to be really love And I
think, what's the shame kind of because on what you both were saying about
his functioning as his current self Peter Banning, is that because he's blocked off
that part of his life as Peter Pan, he's also taken away a lot
of his strengths, or are a lot of his perceived strengths, like all
the things that you learn growing up that make you feel really resilient and confident
and sure about yourself, and things that you can, as I say to
clients, you can go into your brain and you can go into the file
folders of your brain and you can pull files that you can bring into current
situations when you're feeling nervous or anxious or uncertain. He has locked those miles
away and so he doesn't have access to them. And so that's why things
that he should feel really competent in, like flying or like the open air.
Pretty much he doesn't have that evidence anymore that he can use for himself.
And I wonder too if now unfortunately he's grouped that those elements into that
part of his brain that is like that either like that he has decided isn't
okay, or that is more trauma related. Because something we're talking about is
why did he other than the magical element of like his dissociation, is that
he had a very traumatic childhood. You know, he was they said he
ran away, but he's like a baby. Even when I was little,
I was like, you can't run away as a baby. Yeah, I
thought that was nus. I always thought that was um yeah, that's a
little bit lazy writing. And but if I really think about it more like
realistically, is that he was taken as a baby and raised as like in
the woods with other children kind of trying to raise him, and being attacked,
not just attacked, but being the arch nemesis of an adult who had
a whole band of adults who was literally like cutting you. You know,
he has scars from being in physical altercations with a grown up who was,
as they remark later, much bigger than him and even though he does have
these enchanted skills, he's still a little kid, a ten year old fighting
a grown ass man and his grown ass minions. And so even though a
lot of that is seen as fun and frivolity, that's also very, very
scary, And I can't imagine he's not feeling that somewhere within him, especially
without these memories that kind of give it text, remembering that not everything that
he's seeing is traumatic too, like the experiences with Hook would be right,
and whatever happened at the attachment level would absolutely be and would form a difficult
relationship with connecting to people. Like you're saying, I think the window is
a representation of hiding from grief more than I would argue trauma, because he
is rejecting Peter Pan at that point, not hiding away from the things that
happened to Peter Pan. With our memory, part of the way that our
brain learns is very simple, with reinforcements and punishments, and we either encode
things as neutral, do it again because that helped or felt good, and
don't do that again because that hurts. Yeah, And he had to learn
that Peter Pan hurts, and Peter Pan came into that world and left it
through that window. The last time he left Neverland and abandoned his identity was
through that window. And at that time, not only did he have to
deal with the grief that Wendy had gotten old, yeah yeah, and that
Wendy was no longer able to come with him, but also that he can
no longer be Peter Pan if he wants these people in his life. So
the way I looked at it was a little bit different. Not the window
being fear. I mean, the fear of flying and fear of heights were
obviously a established thing. I would argue it's probably more fear of heights than
flying itself, but they're so closely related because it's really fear of falling.
Is that phobia is no I and all fears loss of control. Right that.
Looking at Peter the grown up version, I think what he'd had to
do was in code information of being Peter Pan as not compatible to survival in
this world with this identity, and therefore started hiding away from the grief because
he did not have the emotional capacity at his age and worldview understanding of how
to deal with that. Because the only examples he had, as you said,
astuteley came from children. And yeah. The other thing about Peter pan
mythos that's important to understand is that lost boys that grow up become pirates.
Ye. Just not only is he being pursued by by adults, he's being
pursued by the nemesis of something that will get him rejected from his family and
his shadow basically. Yeah, yeah, that's huge. That scene where he
comes into Neverland and says like, I want to talk to a grown up
and Rufio responds back with like, ron ups are pirates, Like like,
why would you want to talk to them? That's terrible. That's the enemy.
Um. I feel like it's so powerful to that imagery of like who
who is the responsible party? What do we grow into? And we grew
into that and that's now that's problematic when I'm coming back through. Yeah,
that's huge. And I forgot whether it is Wendy or Tinkerbell that tells him
he's a pirate. I think it's when it's Wendy she says, Peter,
You've become a pirate. Yes, When he's describing his job right when he
gets to Wendy's house, which is gig number one MM but yeah, I
think that's really interesting Ben how he also liked that grief part and having to
sort of put that part of his life in a little locked box in his
brain too, because he is doing something which culturally for lost boys is the
ultimate betrayal, which is allowing yourself to grow up and be pulled into the
world of men if you will. And it makes me wonder if that's part
of why even though he is in England, that's isn't like that's where he
comes into back into the world and he marries a British woman, he still
takes them to America. He is an American accent, their kids are American.
They've never even met his family in England like they've they've never I don't
think they've ever. It's been ten years since they came back, so Eliza
doesn't know these kids. These kids haven't never met Wendy. And he's totally
separated his his current identity, not just from Peter Pan but anything involving like
England and Wendy and even his wife's family, like he's taken her from them
too, and he's made a whole new life and identity in America that is
totally separate, which is really telling. I think of how much he's like
truly running away from integrating all the parts of himself. He just can't deal.
And I'm sure it was something that slowly happened until all of a sudden
he opens his eyes one day and he's a pirate. Yeah, yep.
And the thing about his personality like leaking out that also I looked at it
a little bit differently, is Yes, the trauma things that we have absolutely
leak out. We can't hide from them. But we can't hide from anything
we've learned, and especially not anything that's our personality. Your personality is largely
formed by the time you're three. You aren't going to stop being here.
You can mature, you can learn, and your learning system stays active song
as your brain is working. But what people don't understand is that even if
you put a part of your personality away or try to, it's gonna come
out. Yeah, you can't not be who you are. It's why when
you go to family gatherings despite parts aside, because we can talk about that
all day, is that people's personality because parts is personality. It's a part
of your personality that forms around a need but looking at personalities, you can
without fail predict people's behaviors and reactions. You know, well at a really
high level. If you understand their personality to its core, like you will
be able to predict the things they can't not do. You know, you
know how to get your mom going. You know exactly what to say,
what old thing to bring up that your mom just can't help, and you
just sit back and smile as you trigger her. I watch my wife do
it to her mother in law, to my mother in law all the time.
My wife triggers her mom constantly. Her mom still gets mad still to
this day. We are in our late third and she's still to this day
gets mad that Caroline watched American Pie at a sleepover, which is fair,
but but she still gets back if Caroline just goes like, oh Mom,
we just got a new edition of American Pie and you and we all know
that, and your personality just it can't it can't be contained, it can't
be league, it can't be negotiated with. It's gonna come out. You
are who you are. Yeah, And I think that's interesting. We see
that in Moirah when she shows up at the house, um where and Peter
even like brings that up of like what has gotten into you? And She's
like, I don't know. It's this house. It's this feeling of being
in this space that has that is bringing up this element of joy that she
experiences. You can tell that her experience showing up in England feels radically different
than Peters. Peter is like, hey, we need to keep it all
in our together and England is the land of manners and we should do all
these pieces. She's just like exuberant in that space, practically skipping and giddy.
M Yeah, child part got activated work mute. And it makes me
wonder too with the flying, like his agitation is maybe like the closer they
get to England, the more ratchet up he is becoming. And then once
they're in England and he's screaming and it and I it does seem like his
one outburst where he screams at Jack when Jack goes bang, it does seem
process I'm assuming it's slightly out of character because Jack's response is so like like
you see like gas when he says I'm sorry, Like he seems genuinely like
taken aback that his father like yelled at him like that, his reaction as
a kid who doesn't typically get yelled that like that, and how quickly he
apologizes. So that does give me a window into this idea that him being
in the home different than Moira is like it's really fucking his shit up and
he's not aware of it, and he's attributing it to everyone being loud,
everyone like being annoying. The deal in England like it. It makes me.
It very much makes me think of when I work with clients and they're
trying to tell me like it's because of this and because of that, and
I'm like, like, sure that might be agitating the situation and what about
this thing going on underneath? And they're like, oh, but It's what's
interesting is how much we can be unaware that things like that are bothering us.
Yeah, And a lot of times we can only notice in reflection that
oh, I was really, like really at my wits end all week,
and now I look back and I realize it's because it was the anniversary of
this, or because we were in this house or doing this thing, or
it was this time of year. And so I would wager with as we've
talked about the irritability and anxiety. Piece, that's what it is. And
kind of going back to that not being present apart and I don't know you'd
want to speak more on this, Terra is there is that speech that Moira
gives about like being present because the product of not being present all the time
is that you don't notice yourself when you are getting ratcheted up. Yeah,
and she brings that up in different ways, but it can be applied overall.
Yeah, that following line throughout the whole thing of like Peter, you're
missing it, You're not here, like we're not seeing you and you are
missing all of this was so powerful to me throughout the whole movie of him
just not really being present. One of the tools I use a lot,
which is in my book, is the sober skill, which asks us to
stop before we make a decision to observe what is going on both inside and
outside of ourselves. Take some deep breaths, evaluate the situation, evaluate the
responses that you want to do, and then choose before you feel that initial
reaction to something. And that that, oh is the part that I feel
like every single one of my clients who struggles with anxiety or impulsive decisions or
whatever. Is the part that they want to skip. They're they're good at
stopping and they're good at breathing, and then they can come up with some
responses. But the OH is the part that we have to work on a
lot, which is observing what's going on inside and outside of you. We
can look outside and pick out all the things that are wrong of, like,
well, this deal's not done, and everybody's being loud and all those
pieces, but you also have to do the work of like and I don't
like how I feel here right now. It feels awkward being in this home
again with you. I'm feeling reactive because you're jumping around like a little kid,
and I'm not digging this. Something's up here. I need to pause
and take some time to reflect before I can figure out what to do next,
because if I just keep going the way I've always been going, I'm
not going to get the results that I want. I need to figure out
what's going on in me, recognize, name it, get ready to make
some of those changes so I can choose the path that's going to work best
for me. At the end of the sober skill, we do a weighing
test, which is whatever option you choose, you can do that. If
you can do it non judgmentally, fully present, and on purpose, then
go for it and do it. If at any point you figure out it's
not working for you, go back to the beginning, stop, observe what's
happening, breathe go through it again. And that weighing test, I feel
like would be a key skill for Peter to learn of, Like what can
I do that's non judgmental to not only myself, but what's going on here?
What can I do being fully present in this situation as a parent,
as an adult, you know, with the skills I have, and then
make sure that I'm doing it on purpose, it fits my values, it
my mission in life. Yeah, he's definitely missing all of that. And
even with you kind of even using the term sober is it. It reminds
me of towards the end of the movie when they sort of hint that maybe
all this is in Peter's head, hook says you drink too much too,
So that is also part of that like avoidant part is you know, is
he diving into the bottle also to not be present? And that is a
mal adaptive coping skill to you know all this stress that's building up within him
that he's not taking any time to reflect upon. Absolutely, So we will
take a break here and come right back. Okay. So in terms of
the anxiety, avoidance and association, is there anything else we want to jump
on? The only thing I guess I want to make sure that I recover
with anxiety and people's reactivity real quick is because we haven't done in this one
and I never know which episodes people have listened too, So we'll cover it
because something that I didn't even learn in grad school, I honestly learned it
when I was observing police Academy classes and then it clicked in a whole lot
of information went duh, And maybe it's just I didn't learn it. But
people need to understand that people serve Anxiety is a survival response designed to make
us react to threats in an adaptive way that promotes our survival. This is
what anxiety is. For anxiety, The emotion and the body response and anxiety
of the disorder are not synonyms, and anxiety is not a bad word.
People can react strongly when you tell them like you're having anxiety, alright,
anxiety, Like okay, you have it right now, So yes you do.
But it depends on how antagonistic I want to be. The thing that's
really important those understanding that your blood pressure is intimately tied to how reactive you're
going to get, and the higher your blood pressure goes up, the more
sensory exclusions and decreased body and brain function you start to get as your body
switches from logical processing too reactionary, and the more reactive you get, the
less logical you get. It is why when you are running late for work
and you lose your keys, you start looking for them behind the milk because
you put them there once when you like seven years ago, and then you
go through the whole house tearing up everything, couch cushions, garbage, bed,
dumping everything on the floor and being a ridiculous tornado of destruction, and
then realize your keys are under the mail exactly where you left them. You
just couldn't see them, but your brain, because it was in reactive survival
processing, couldn't think, ah, move thing here. It just was able
to interpret keys not there. Move on. How dare you attack me like
this on a public forum? Normally it's Hannah, I'm attacking so You're welcome,
and all I have to say is that what can I say except you're
welcome. There's no need to pray. It's okay, You're welcome. I
think the only other thing I really wanted to touch upon with Peter before we
move on to Hook is that he because something as a child therapist, something
I see a lot, or I've seen a lot, is parents who have
gone through traumatic experiences as children, or parents who did not have consistent caregivers
and then they become parents. And so I think something we have to keep
in mind with Peter throughout the movie is that he did not have any parents,
Like he was not modeled, like, no parenting was modeled to him.
And then by the time he was actually in someone's home, he was
a like like an older teenager. Probably if he came into the England at
like thirteen and he was adopted, it probably wasn't ntil his fourteen or fifteen,
and so he did not get any parenting from an actual parent when he
was a child. And you know, as we said before, he left
for Neverland as like a literal like infant baby, and so it makes sense
why now as an adult raising kid, I think it can present a few
ways. One is the irritability we do see, like like getting kind of
stuck in situations and not knowing how to handle it and so then reacting with
yelling, even like on the plane when he's ratched up and he's like,
why can't you not act like a kid? Or when you can see acting
like a kid and Jack laughs, which I love that kid's energy, he
laughs, and when he goes, I am a kid, And I think
that those scenes like that, it's what makes me think of that is when
you aren't raised by parents and you don't have that distinction of like parents versus
kids, there can also, especially if you're raised amongst peers like he is,
you're going to have a hard time crowding that separation. And so when
you become a parent, you can project your adult brain onto your children unfairly
and then have these unfair expectations of them, so wanting them to act mature,
like when they get and he's like, you have to have good manners
to england, yelling at them when they're goofing off in the room in the
house, like all of that also indicates to me someone who just never knew
what it was like, never saw a parent growing up, and so then
you're learning as you go. And I think based on how we've talked about
him, he feels like someone who's just white knuckling through life, just going
from like one beat to the next, just hoping it'll work out. And
also seems to have a very lovely, supportive partner, Moira, who probably
takes a lot of the slack. And also on my assumption is he's the
primary breadwinner, so it makes me even curious how much active parenting he even
does, and that could be part of why he's more portrayed as workaholic in
the beginning, is that's a role he can feel more comfortable in, and
being a parent maybe feels a little too uncomfortable or antagonistic even for him to
fully melt into. And then also part of the parent immunion of parents is
that there can be a lot of nuance around Another of grief is if you
then you as a parent, being trying to be a good parent to your
children can bring up a lot of unexpected feelings of even like jealousy, grief,
sadness that what you're giving to a child was not given to you,
and it can be almost like a ree grief experience that I don't think people
are aware enough of or are ready for when they choose to have children.
And he's someone that he mentions in his Happy Thoughts scene that he really wanted
to have kids, which I think is really interesting. And if I was
if he was in my office and he said, well, I really wanted
to be a daddy, I would have jumped on that and we would have
talked about that for the next twelve sessions what that means and what that actually
looks like, and what did he think being a daddy would be And is
that him trying to people have kids because they're trying to almost like parent themselves,
or heal that relationship by having a kid, And then sometimes that works
fine, and sometimes it, like I said, brings up a lot of
complicated feelings. And I wouldn't be shocked if he was someone who was like,
Okay, now I'm going to have kids, and I'm going to give
them what I didn't have. And I raised a bunch of boys in Neverland.
I took care a bunch of kids, so I'll be great at it.
I was the leader of a bunch of children, but growing up in
a commune of children and being their little leader is very different than having to
teach a little person how to be a person in the world. Well,
and I think it's really interesting too, of like when when he was in
Neverland doing all of this stuff, when he was the leader of the group,
he was leading them on raids, he was leading them in the play
situations and all that stuff. He brought Wendy to be a parent. Yeah
right, you're right. He still got to go do his job as a
leader and all of those pieces, and Wendy did the parenting even an Eland
marriage right, and in his marriagin now he even has that. I'm totally
thinking of the scene where hook says, you know, if you can just
reach out and touch their little fingertips, you can take them home. And
he gives up. And I think about that element of when you're in a
partnership and you've got somebody who was able to help you out and be that
extra for what you can't be, Like you find ways to just kind of
do your own thing and not have it be that problem. I think about
if my row is up there, like she would have leaped off of that
thing at them and not given up until she figured out a way to touch
her children, not because she's a better parent than him, but because she
wasn't real lying on having a partner to make the process happen. He has
always relied on a partner to make the process happen. Yeah, that's a
good insight because he's still trying to do his understood role as a parent,
which is right a check or like insert his dominance. Yeah, and lead
lead people into battle, which he is a lawyer and goes to battle constantly.
And you see when he's in his work form against people that, as
you pointed out, are his peers, and he doesn't have to be in
charge of what does he do? He activates and becomes their battle buddy.
H m hmm. Yeah. But we will take another break here and we
will talk about Hook. Mister Hook, what is his deal? What is
up with this grown man who makes his living and his life mission battling tiny
baby children, some as young as it seems six years old, wearing makeshift
armor. M I don't think his deal is he is in a land of
magic and the children are obviously capable combatants. Therefore it requires some apologist.
Apologist's entered the chat tail I know one thing we were joking about sort of
before we started recording is that Hooks potentially possibly what we would call like a
cluster B type, which is what's cluster B that is part of like personality
disorders and cluster discluster A cluster B, clusters C. Cluster B is I
might miss one, but it is borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder,
narcissistic personality disorder, and am I missing one antisocial antisocial personality disorder. And
I think, like we talked about before, because this is a movie and
there's a lot of magic, and also we see a little baby window into
his life the sides of a ship's window, if you will, we can't
really like accurately diagnose him, So apologies to anyone who's listening who really wants
us to diagnose hook But I would say he displays a lot of a lot
of traits of cluster B diagnoses. I think he certainly shows plenty of traits
of narcissism and being very histrionic and provocative, although I don't maybe I don't
know, the sexual behavior isn't there, but he's very provocative in all of
his behaviors, very showy, very demonstrative, and he also shows a lot
of manipulation. He's definitely someone who is very dramatic, and the more of
the psychological term for that is histrionic. He is very, like you're saying,
demonstrative. He likes to put on a show. He likes to lord
over all his little minions, he likes to be in a position of power.
And I think what makes it sort of cluster B for me, and
you know, I'm interested in what you guys think, is that his identity
seems really tied into this role he's playing and his relationship to others, which
is what makes the people like to vilify cluster B diagnosis a lot. Where
I have a lot of empathy for diagnosis of cluster B is that it is
a horrible way to feel, where it's like your heart is living outside of
your chest, like who like your sense of self is totally controlled in your
mind by other people. And that's such a powerless, helpless position to be
in, which is why you will see people who have these diagnoses. Really
one gets sort of enmeshed and codependent pretty quickly and also will try to control
others behaviors by this sort of acting out demonstrative histrionic behavior. I think a
classic example that we see in this movie play for comedy but you know,
pretty intense, is that he threatens to shoot himself in the head, to
kill himself, and the laugh part is where he is like, it's clearly
a threat because Smee's like letting it happen, and he's like stop me,
Smee. Don't stop me, Smee, but stop me. Same and See's
actually gonna let him do it, which is interesting that's me would have let
him, you know, complete that. But Smee does finally jump in,
and when he finally jumps in, he's like, no, letting me do
it. So this very like all over the place energy where it's clear that
his behaviors like that are to draw a response from others that help him feel
like he's regulating himself. I think Smee even asks like right at the beginning
of like are you are you being dramatic Captain and kind of look said,
I'm like, what am I supposed to do here? I know you do
this a lot, but I'm not sure is this the time? What am
I doing? And I loved that moment because I do think that in relationships
that have that are experiencing some of those symptoms, that the other partner does
have to try and figure out what's going on here. Is this one of
the times where I need to let you figure out how to regulate, or
is this one of those times where I need to step in because there's something
serious going on and they have to figure out a good way to communicate.
When I work with folks on in either position of the relationship, that's a
conversation that we have of like, let's come up with a safe word of
times where it's like, no, I really don't need you right now,
I'm working this out. I'm just doing it verbally or dramatically or in this
way, or no, I really need this, and Captain Hook had to
go through all the iterations of like don't stop me, don't stop me,
wait, stop me, somebody like what are we doing here? And coming
up with a good way to communicate can help alleviate some of that pressure for
the other party in the relationship. Yeah, And I think you bring up
a good point, which is that it's very clear that this is a pattern
of behavior, like the way that's me responses that this isn't like the first
time he's done something like this. Yeah, he offers the coping skill of
like, don't you want to play with your little with your little ship in
the lake and come over here? It'll be fun. Yeah. Yeah.
Their relationship definitely has like codependent and meshment energy where Schmidt is always anticipating him
and then trying to get ahead of his tantrums for lack of a better way
of putting it, which is definitely something that happens in relationships and family relationships
where there is somebody who has a personality disorder because somebody gets tasked with managing
in them in order to maintain the structure of the family system and the function
because when people who are as we'll say disregulated as Hook, are imbalanced and
don't have a support that is able to anticipate their needs, they then begin
to unravel. And we see that the more Smee gets occupied with caring for
the child Jack, is that the Jack. Yeah, The more SMEA gets
involved with Jack and gets kind of relegated into a parenting role, you start
to see more scenes where they show distance between Smee and Hook instead of Smee
always being like right on Hook all the time, and they have, you
know, a very homogeneous close relationship where they are reciprocally responding to each other
I guess reciprocally parasitically probably, yeah, yeah, because Smee is really you
know, like the bird that cleans the alligator's teeth, like going like,
let's uh, we don't break that up. That's a sore spot. I
didn't like croc alligators only live in America. Brittany, Oh, I didn't
know that. You're still marpm god. I mean, I'm glad that you
recognize that yet again. He Please inform my wife that I'm actually intelligent.
But any who, the thing that I think is important to understand is when
you look at this relationship, when someone is constantly covering and managing the behavior,
it takes a lot out of them. And even though they may be
happy to perform that role, it's an impossible role and an impossible task,
and no one can do it all the time because they have their own needs.
And you see Hook unravels the most when sme freaks out and starts collecting
treasure. It is in that moment where we see Hook really lose it.
Yeah, yeah, And going back to what you said about like me taking
on a more parenting role. I think if let's say we remove the ending
of this movie and I could stuck around and actually became like a little baby
Hook and sme, you know, to continue to build on that relationship,
there probably would be a point where Hook wouldn't be able to tolerate Jack being
around anymore because it would be too threatening to his relationship to me, and
would like, you know, he'd probably send Jack away either like like have
him off the plank or take him to Lost Boys or something. Oh no,
plank, clank, I know, I just I think I just wished.
I just hope. No. No. And that's where the personality thing
shows that Hook obviously has absolutely no empathy, uses people to attain his own
means, would have several run ins with the law if the law existed,
and persistently hurts other people. I think the evidence for that is a fairly
strong That we see Hook developed that, and he is very performative with that,
which is dangerous. He's very high on that Macavellian scale. It's very
manipulate in that dark triad. And when you when you look at Hook,
I think that the second it stopped being entertaining for him to care for Jack,
to antagonize Peter that his close relationship would immediately dissolve. M Yeah,
absolutely, SMEEs would not. But that the special place that Jack gets where
he gets to be a little a little mini Hook and wear his fancy clothes
and dress up like him and be able to be not a dirty, scummy
pirate who the second you bet against Hook, you get scorpions thrown on you
in a treasure chest. And that's Glenn clothes if you didn't notice, is
it, Yeah, with like beard and you know, makeup on and stuff.
I'm gonna go ahead and quote Brian Griffin here and say she's a very
handsome woman. I also read that the couple that's kissing on the bridge that
get the fairy dust on them when they float off, that's George Lucas and
Carrie Fisher. I think with you're right in that the narcissistic identity would would
view Jack as would get enjoyment out of Jack being a little like limb version
of them, and then once that gets boring, that'll be that. And
yeah, so you see Trump, Donald and Pence. Michael January sixth,
versus January fifth. Yeah, and I think too. What we're seeing also,
where we come in on hook with this story is that he is someone
going through on top of maybe having these cluster b tendencies and maybe a diagnosis,
is that he's also someone in the midst of an identity crisis. He
is someone who is bored of his life period. And he mentions that,
He basically says that the reason why I kidnapped Peter's children and even like am
using all the energy getting Peter back here is because I'm bored. I'm bored
of fighting children, I'm bored of fighting lost boys. I'm bored of the
same story over again. I miss my glory days when I had an arch
nemesis that felt like my equal even though he was ten, and I want
that again. And so he creates this whole drama and burns all these calories
to try to bring more meaning to his life because he feels like he's lost
it. What the irony of it is is he's just which people do this
all the time. He's recreating a pattern that he's already done and that he's
still kind of doing in a slightly different way. So it's not like Peter
is this magical element that's been missing from his life. But he's attributing that
because, as we've talked about, even with Peter, he's looking out so
outside of him for the reason for why he's feeling the way he's feeling,
instead of looking inward and being like, how do I make meaning for myself?
And maybe I don't want to be a pirate anymore that fights kids.
Maybe I can be a different kind of pirate. I mean, I don't
think that. I don't even know if they ever leave doc and Neverland,
if they're always just sitting there stationary, doing the shame shit day after day,
go out there and scab into the land. I'm sure there are other
islands outside of Neverland you could explore, but then he would have to acknowledge,
you know, what could maybe feels like weaknesses in his identity of I
don't know how to be how to be new at something again, I don't
know how to maybe be bad at something again. I don't know how to
do something different because then I have to look weak potentially or foolish, And
so instead I want to go backwards and re engage in something that I already
know that I'm really good at and then I kick ass doing. Yeah,
you talked to it earlier about I think it might have been before we started
taping, but about if you were going to treat Hook like one of the
things you would want him to do is to really establish his values and understand
what it is that he wants and where he wants to go with his world
and who he is and what he thinks is important in the world. And
I think that in a lot of the work I think that we all do
with people, we do have to try and help them get to the core
of what are your established values, so that as you're making decisions, whether
it's to launch and go find another island or stay here and keep doing what
you're doing, how does it relate back to those Because if you're living out
your values, things tend to go in a direction where you can feel confident
and you can feel resilient. But when you're living outside of your values,
or you don't know what they are because you haven't explored them, everything seems
a little chaotic and weird and not really helpful in how you're doing the world,
and it just feels unstable. And I think we see with Hook because
he doesn't really have a sense of values within him. It literally kills him.
You know, Peter gives him two chances to just keep going, and
I'm gonna leave and I'm not I because Peter has his own values. Now,
I value my family above whatever this is between us, you know,
pride or defeating my enemy or whatever and so, and which does happen if
one system, If one part of a system's changed, any other part of
the system that's not changing can freak out. And so he freaks out,
and he tries to double down to reestablish status quo, and then it quite
literally kills him because he doesn't have something that means as much to him as
Peter's kids do to Peter. Yeah, and big people who are narcissistic can
also in addition to the jealousy, they can get really bored if they don't
have someone to prove their dominance against that feels at least somewhat worthy. And
that's important that some people can really get antagonistic when they feel like, yeah,
this is too easy. H this is too easy. I'm bored.
And that's what you know. It creates that like villain trait in particular is
they need something to do with their villainy mm. So in real life you
say this more as people who stir the pot a lot, and you can't
really make sense of why they do that. People who were like antagonistic,
and it doesn't really make sense. I'm going to separate that out for clarity.
That's not necessarily a personality disorder. That's just a trait. Yes,
exactly that some people do that because they enjoy doing that. Although being sadistic
is something that is part of that dark triad if we are to try to
you know, even though psychopathy is not a real diagnosis that is qualified by
the DSM, when people talk about what is like fits into that like serial
killer triad triangle, like having a degree of sadisticness is important, and antagonism
and sadism aren't necessarily the same thing. Yet they're not necessarily not It depends
on the spirit of it. And if you're trying to inflict pain or if
you're trying to just get under somebody's skin is a different thing. So several
caveats there. But I don't think I want to draw a direct line between
people who are shitsters to people that are pure villains, because some people just
oh here it is some people, some men in particular, just want to
watch the world burn. There you go, you got your Batman, the
whole thing in there. Hook is realizing also that he is getting older.
M yeah, he's getting much older, which is interesting. So I guess
the adults grew older in this land, but the kids don't. Maybe they
all grow really slow age, really slowly. It seems like the theme is
that they I don't know. He said at some point, I'm really old
looking for being ten. One of those boys. No look no, because
Peter says, you know, you were much bigger when I was smaller,
and then he says, I'm huge to a ten year old. He was
just making the distinction that they're peers now and he's not an adult fighting a
child, which I'm like, okay, I mean, as amazing as Dustin
Hoffman's acting is, and he is a very big presence on the screen,
he is all the five foot five so he yeah, he's really short.
I didn't know that. What a little gum drop. Yeah he's he's I
mean, Robin was five seven, so it's not like wow, yeah,
interesting, interesting, interesting where he was one of those jaunty heels in this
movie, and he's always, always, always above. They always got the
power shot on they got the Tom Cruise shot on him. Yeah. Hum,
but looking at maybe so maybe I just misheard it and that makes it.
But no, he's getting he's getting older, and you can be able
to look at when people start entering later phases of life. We all,
on a base level have a standard existential fear of being irrelevant, and as
Hook is becoming irrelevant, identifying and synthesizing personality disorder plus existential fear equals dangerous
person who might do some banana stuff like steal your kids. Yeah, he's
he feels backed into a corner like there's the panic there, accordingly and be
very like, what if it's so? What if it ends in my death?
You know, least I'll be doing something kind of energy. He wants
that glorious purpose, that glorious war. He's ready to lead his pirates into
war to satisfy the needs of his own ego. Yeah, which is the
thing that people do in real life. Unfortunately all the time, never ever
done that. Who is, why have we ever had any war we've ever
had in real life? You know, nothing to do with egos and freaking
out. The Trojans and the Greeks were fighting over territory. Obviously it wasn't
over somebody's wounded ego because their wife left. Yeah, I mean, come
on, who deals that? But in thinking about grooming in the context of
this movie, there are definitely things that we see Hook do that are similar
to what we've talked about in an episode, specifically the Coraline episode. I
think there's a lot of parallels between what happens in Coraline and this movie,
and that it's, you know, a neglectual parent, a kid who's already
feeling pretty antagonistic towards their parent, villain coming in and selling them the world,
Like everything that you've been missing about your actual parent, I'm able to
give you. He literally says, like around the ball game scene, you
know, like your dad missed all your ball games. I would never miss
a ball game. Jack, Like he's being like very textbook, very obvious,
you know, like your dad sucks like this, but I don't suck
like that. I'm gonna be great in this way that your dad is bad.
He's constantly reiterating, and it's very quick. It's literally three days this
movie happens over the course of like three or four days. And that's I
think where the magic part comes in, which is that they have the element
also of Jack forgetting his family, and so he's able to prey upon that
as well. Whereas Jack's foundation a feeling connected to his parents and his both
his mom and his dad, is eroding by magic in the time that they're
spending in Neverland, and so he does that to his advantage. And yeah,
and he's giving him very like Corraline. He's giving Jack everything that's positive
and pumping up all the dad's negatives. I think the clock breaking scene was
what made me want to do this movie period for our podcast, because that's
such a classic example of not just pulling a kid away from their actual parents,
but also cementing their relationship and that we're doing something together, We're doing
something really wild that your parents would never let you do. And the amount
of praise and attention he gives to Jack throughout that whole that whole exchange,
and then as jackets emotional, he is present for that and engaging with him,
and so that in all of itself is stuff that could be like obviously
like indicators of grooming. I think something too. That felt similar to what
we've talked about with grooming, kind of like the button eyes with Coraline is
him getting to the point where he's dressed up like Hook and he's gonna pierce
his ear. That felt very symbolic of like almost like an initiation kind of
thing of once I pierce your ear, you're in it now with me,
and that is that kind of building, building building to like the bigger ask
of fully integrating into this life and it gets interrupted, which I think is
telling. Also maybe they just don't want to show a little kid getting their
ear pierced. But I think what felt a little different from me is that
Hook isn't trying. His goal isn't Jack, Like, his goal isn't to
have Jack and to do something to Jack or with Jack. Like with coral
Line of the other mothers trying to eat her and grooming in real life,
the groomer is trying to obtain like the person that they're doing that with with
This has kind of reminded me more which I see as a child therapist and
a family therapist, of more like parental and alienation where one adult is using
a child between them to pit them against each other. And to yeah,
just use the kid as sort of like a weapon, weaponizing their relationship with
their child, and in very similar ways of just like poisoning their parent,
like one parent poisoning the kid against the other. And so that's what felt
kind of different. I just wanted to point that out since grooming is such
a hot topic right now. Yeah, and that's important too to recognize that
this is a good example of it done in a different way, because it's
not always parent to parent that debt can happen. Yeah, sometimes that can
happen with coaches or uncles or aunts and uncles or whatever. It's some body
else. Can damage somebody's perception of another person that's important in their life,
and that parental alienation aspect of it is something that parents really need to be
mindful to not do. Yes, if they're going to split up or they're
going to be not a part, it's very important to not do that because
even as we see in this fantastical film, this kid is getting really really
damaged by what Hook is doing, and Hook is doing it as a game
that the kid is not capable emotionally or developmentally of understanding. All he is
seeing is my needs are getting met and this feels good. So if we
go back to that point of made about learning before this feels good, keep
doing it. And then Hook, as he's setting his hook in, is
bringing in this kid closer and closer to this fake reality. He's going to
absolutely cast him out from. Yeah. Yeah, I think what's on typical
narcissist dick pattern of the pump him up and cast him away. Yeah,
I think what's so unfortunate in this movie is that he just happens upon Jack
when Jack is in a vulnerable position, that he just happens to find Jack
when Jack is feeling really separate from his dad and really wanting his dad's attention
and feeling really hurt like he cries during that clock scene. It's not that
he's just pissed at his dad and fuck his dad like he is in pain.
And it's just genuinely so unfortunate that Hook finds him at this perfect spot
where he can really take advantage of him. And he must be ten,
because that's they haven't gone to England in ten years and they haven't met him,
and so he must be that around that age, and so he's so
vulnerable, And yeah, you're right, in that he doesn't understand that he's
being used and that this new dad who's showing up, who's giving him all
this affection, that it's not genuine. Kids don't know that, they don't
know the difference between like genuine affection, and that they're being part of a
play that's going on around them between the adults, and it's gonna fuck with
his attachment. My hope for him is that he just forgets all this,
like the magic of Neverland protects him because it's only been a few days and
he just forgets a lot of it when he comes back to England. But
who knows. Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't know what
it is with the English stories, but this particular trope is really profound in
English stories written around that time, because do you know who the parallel to
Jack and Hook is Edmund Heavency and the White Queen. Oh yeah, I
was thinking Narnia mmmmmmmm. And you know, kids being taken advantage of being
taken under a villain's wing, being used and not understanding it, and being
separated out from their family, pulled away, isolated, pumped up, shown
all this affection and love and you know, we don't see the turn here.
Who doesn't really turn on him until no, hoo doesn't really turn on
him, does he? No, it's because it all happens so quickly,
Like he is still in his good graces when Peter shows up to finally take
the kids away, so Jack thankfully is is saved from that outcome that it
then he just has this new narrative where his dad just comes and saves him.
I think there's something interesting too to remember that none of this was Hook's
idea. Snee brought the idea to him, Oh, oh, we should
turn these kids to be yours, right? And I think that that triggers
something in me about the dynamic of Like, is this, you know,
a really narcissistic intent of his to do this piece? I don't. I
don't know that it is. I think it was an opportunity that presented itself
and fit a narrative that he felt like he could buy into and then go
towards. And even in the earlier when Tinkerbelt Like begs him up, doesn't
beg him, but like tricks him into giving Peter Pan some time to become
Peter Pan. She strokes his ego a bunch and tries to get him to
this place where it's like, now it's your idea, and you do the
thing. But she goads him into this whole ordeal. But I do think
that he has those reactions of casting out and having those outlandish kind of behaviors
that would have happened to Jack. But I think Sme brought him this wounded
little puppy and said we can do something with this. I can, I
can still get your needs met because I want to keep this status quo of
what's normal for you. I want to make you happy again. I want
to keep you moving forward. Let's have a because having a baby together brings
you closer and just prepares any rift in the relationship doesn't introduce any new stress
that this relationship isn't prepared for. And absolutely not. Never children don't test
the boundaries between parents ornately pit them against each other. Never sleep deprived people
whose blood pressure is rising don't become irrational. Yeah, And I think the
benefit to it only being literally days is that hook never gets to really experience
those pitfalls either. Hookers me like, they never really get to see what
it's like to be taking care of a child. They just get to do
the like the enjoyment, the gamey parts of it before it's all over and
done with. Right, they get to be fun, dad, Yeah,
they get to be fun to add And the other important thing about that is
it lends credence to the authenticity of Jack's response that there has not been sufficient
time for Jack to express a need from Hook that may cause Hook's mask to
drop. Right. Right, it's all been fun so far, and it's
fun for Hook. That's the that's the crusher. It's always going to be
fun for the kid to get attention and get to do you know it driven
stuff. Yeah, he's going that's of course he's ten. But there's not
been anything that made it not fun for Hook. Yeah, because Maggie is
the one that pushes that and they just send her away. Yeah, they're
just like, get this little kid, this little girl, Get this kid
out of here. It was a girl out of our face because she's very
like she's one of those kids like when we talked about Matilda, that's just
like, is it either like naturally resilient or just has a very secure attachment
to their mom. And and it's also very young. She's like seven,
so she might not have enough like abstract thinking yet to be pulled into this
stuff. She's just thinking like our mommy and daddy love us, Like,
don't get it's all as simple as that. You just need a mommy.
That's your problem, all right? So anything else about hook before we go
into treatment? All right? We'll take another break here, all right?
So who wants to go first with treatment? You know? I will?
As I got started, if that's all right? Yeah, yeah, I
As I got started. Watching the movie again, it really hit hard to
me sometimes how when there is deep seated trauma, in order to get to
that, you have to get some some like quicker winds at the beginning.
As I've worked with people in lots of different fashions of their relationships with themselves
and with anxiety and depression, UM, lot of times, you know,
they come in and they look at you and say, like, how do
I make this go away? I just don't want to feel like this anymore?
And I talk to them about the idea of building off of quick wins
to get to the longer term work that needs to be done. And so
in watching this movie, one of the first things I probably would have done
for Peter specifically, would be to address some of those phobias of flying or
of heights or things, so that he could experience a little bit more not
control in the way of dealing with his deeper anxiety, but in a way
of being able to teach those skills that allow him to calm himself back down
and regulate. And then once we get that skill kind of on board and
we're able to do that more regularly, we're able to do some things like
open up some of those old trauma wounds and be able to like navigate some
of the stuff that's in there and then be able to close it back up
so that he can go on with his life. Because I think one of
the areas that especially a lot of new clinicians I do. I teach a
lot and work a lot with folks who are dress licensed or folks who are
students, and one of the risk factors that we have a lot of times
is they want to go too deep, too fast with people, and it
makes it so hard for them to kind of navigate the rest of their life
as they are going through. So working on some of these quick winds of
how can we give you these coping skills, how can we get you to
self regulate. How can we keetch you to communicate with your family when you're
stressed and create some of these boundaries to protect yourself and protect your family dynamic,
and then we can start opening up those deep trauma wounds. Whether he's
been associating for however many years, right, Yes, absolutely. I also
have spent a I don't know, ten years now, nine nine years training
baby therapists, and I think it's really important to educate them on ego strengthening
for going into the weeds with trauma. It's a huge point, and it's
a huge, huge thing that I will stress with my staff all the time,
like you guys have to get away to build them up that they believe
it's worth engaging with the trauma, that they will be safe from it,
and that they will be able to both open the box of monsters d and
close the box because you're not gonna get it all out in one fell swoop.
That's not a thing. And I love that. I think it's really
important. Yeah, And I think I love that you brought out up two
because I think therapists there can be a lot of just anxiety that we're not
talking about it yet. Whatever it is, and also to be fair,
like, sometimes clients can come in with that energy too, like you said,
and so there can be a lot of like, I'm not doing therapy
right as a therapist if I'm not, Like, so, let's talk about
that horrible thing right now in our second session and let it giving them permission
to like warm into it. That you don't have to go right for that
right away, I think is very powerful. One of my supervisors one of
the best pieces of advice you ever gave me, and she's like, just
tell a client I don't know, to say I don't know, or we
don't I don't have answer for that yet, or like whatever, and let
it lay. You know, you don't have to be like an expert all
the time, like getting to the quick of everything and having an answer for
everything. And that really helped me when I was anxious and green to be
less like performative in the therapeutic space. Yeah. I totally students all the
time that until they have done the length of the Lord of the Rings trilogy
and the Hobbits trilogy, they probably shouldn't spend time really like trying to dive
straight into the stuff. They get you a plenty of hours left to work
with people when you're working fifty and it's at a time I mean, you
got to give that some room to develop that relationship, to develop that ego
strength, to develop those skills before we can really start doing the big hard
things. M Yeah, sometimes you need to. You know, think back
to clerks too, when you're doing trauma, and remember that the part of
you that's Randall that sees them going like, here's here's the plot of Lord
of the Rings walking more walking, more walking is okay. Yeah, and
that's how I see those movies too. We know, we know, and
you know what, when when it's time to watch Return of the King next
season, we're going to strap you down and set up a you know,
clockwork orange style rig and Hannah and I will just alternate pouring drops in your
eyes as we watch. I don't think it will extended edition of Return of
the King. I don't think this is going to encourage my relationship with this
piece of media. Yeah, it doesn't sound like it. Well, Norman
Blankets, if you want to do it more like cozy style, right,
I'll just I'll give I'll give you treats as you watch it, so it'll
thank you. Instead of giving you the stuff that makes you sick that he
had to take, We'll just give you treats, so you know, work
on that learning there you go. Um, but yeah, I think remembering
that that slow walk, you have to build trust, you have to build
connection, and you have to be constantly encouraging safety. But simultaneously, that
point you made Brittany about, like, am I being a bad therapist by
not talking about the thing? Is sometimes sometimes you are being a bad therapist
by letting the clients parts direct the conversation but right away, and other times
you're being a really mindful therapist to recognize the client has given you subconscious warnings
and indications that they are at their limit for the day, and figuring out
where that line is makes you a good therapist. So no anxiety there,
it's clear as mud. Well, I think I'm thinking it also more from
like a child therapist perspective, where parents can have a lot of anxiety that
you're not talking about the thing or the most the most upsetting behaviors right away,
and I have to always be telling parents you know, I understand,
and the walk work, like you've been talking about, we have to do
that for a while until the kid finally decides that they want to disclose the
big scary thing. If it's self harm, if it's trauma, if it's
whatever, as long as the kid's safe, like, but there can be
a lot of anxiety from the parents' side of not talking about the thing.
So coming up as a child therapist, I would get a lot of anxiety
from parents that I wasn't attacking it basically and having to do a lot of
coaching that with parents will weremen of my treatment that that's not what that looks
like, and if I push it, I run the risk of even in
some situations, retraumatizing the kid or making them feel like this isn't their space,
like I'm operating from their parents' agenda to talk about I'm a little like
spy coming in to talk about the thing that you're not allowing your parents talk
to you about basically, But do you have anything else about treatment before we
move forward going into your stuff? As it sounds perfect well, I use
the two words I was going to talk about, which is parent coaching,
not necessarily how I would do it maybe in this movie, but just letting
people know that parent coaching exists. How it looks like in the way that
I do it, I think a lot of way a lot of parent coaches
do it. It is basically family therapy without the kids involved, and I
just meet with the parents. And that is appropriate for a number of reasons.
Either because we need to talk about subject matter that the kids don't need
to be a part of, from even a boring perspective, not even necessarily
like a traumatizing perspective. And then also if you're actually coaching parents through parenting,
you want to make sure that you aren't disempowering them in front of their
kids and giving their kids ammunition that they can then use at home of like
Britney said that you're not allowed to talk like that anymore, or Britney said
that you're supposed to do this instead, And so I'm trying to build the
parent up. Yeah, don't do that parents, Yeah hard. No,
I'm trying to build the parents up and give them that role within their family
system. And so I can't look like I'm bossing the parents around in front
of the kid. I want to, like I said, not disempower the
parent. And so I think in this situation, I would definitely meet with
probably both of them, probably both Peter and Moira, just because I want
to make sure we're on the same page, not necessarily because I think that
Moira is doing anything wrong. Also, the way he was saying Moira with
that hard American accent Mora was making me feel crazy, because I like,
stop saying moral like that. It's like hurting my brain. But I think
that she should be involved because for two reasons, Once that they're on the
same page with what I'm recommending they do differently as parents or what he does
differently as a parent. And then two for that teamwork part of it is,
I want to make sure that I know what she's doing already as a
parent and how to leave him into that structure if it's positive, which I'm
assuming it is. And then how can she also encourage him to make different
decisions as a parent, So also bringing her in as an empowerment piece to
him. And I think two with her probably like asking her maybe even to
step back a little bit, you know, maybe let Peter handle this situation
at home so that he can build more of a rapport with your two children,
and so they're not always going to mom when something happens or when Dad
doesn't respond the way they want him to, like that they're not always running
to mom, and that Mom is taking advantage of that unintentionally probably and creating
further disengagement from Peter as a more involved parent. So you want the parent
who's not necessarily the identified client, you still want them in session to make
that alignment happen. And then also too, I think from Moira, it
would be good for her to witness perhaps where he is struggling or things that
are triggers for him, just so that one she is a literal support there
present with him and has more insight into why he does the things he does.
And then, like I said, for her to be a support in
the moment at home, maybe even having him identify like I can't quite handle
that yet because of my history. So that's still a situation where you would
have to come in. And it's not me being disengaged or falling into my
old patterns. I'm just not ready to handle that level of whatever it is
yet and I'll be too activated and I still can't handle that level of parenting.
So you want it to be just really integrated. And then my role
as the parent coaches to give little psycho education around how to handle situations,
coping skills work a very teachery, like the coach part is very prevalent and
also still open giving a space to be more of a therapist as well of
like processing, how it feels to be more involved, How does it feel
to have taken a more you know, having modeled skills for Jack or modeled
skills for Maggie. Did that bring up anything for you that was really hard
to deal with? And yeah, and then just having that corroboration altogether.
So I think that would be really helpful for him. I would probably also
make sure that he's an individual therapy alongside that, because I might not have
enough space to do more of the processing work, and that would be and
if he was seeing an individual therapist, I probably would want to collaborate with
them to make sure that they know what I'm asking for, so that they
can have that in their back pocket for when Peter's joining their sessions, because
like I said when we talked about the parenting part earlier, is that this
work can be really triggering if you have your own slippery history with parenting as
a child yourself. So that's where my treatment would go and we'll take another
break here and then we'll move to Hannah. All right, Hannah, what
are you thinking for treatment? I was thinking about how do we reintegrate the
family together after being separated during these couple of days, especially because there's so
much trauma. There are so many different things that happened, and that a
part of how do we help mom feel included in what happened. And also
because when something like this happens, when everybody is split up, can be
really hard to kind of share the experience with each other. And so what
I was thinking about is doing kind of like a debriefing with the whole family.
So in this scenario, I have already been working with the family for
a little while because they are kind of struggling to connect between the parents and
the kids. And also I'm trying to help trying to help mom and dad
beyond more in the same page, because they're very much not in the same
page. But that what I would want to do, after having this experience
and learning about this experience from them, is have them have like a debrief
session with me where they can all kind of talk about what it was like
in their experience in order to help a share the information, but also in
order to help everyone's story feel valid and kind of having witnesses to the story
being valid and also just being able to have them all experience that together,
and how we can bring this to another shared experience, but that something that
is a little bit more controlled and something that feels a little bit more manageable
in terms of debriefing every single tiny thing that happened. This would be more
of kind of bringing the story together, and like, how does the story
make sense? How do we make meaning of this story? What are we
going to do with this story? How are we going to talk about this
story with baby? Friends and family and police? Yeah, the police event.
I mean, there's lots of different ways the cost of so lots of
different ways that they'll have to describe this going forward. And I think that
something that would really help the family with this experience is to give them a
chance to create the narrative and the story together as a unit instead of having
to instead of everyone kind of making their own and then this becoming a story
that is now has now been encoded improperly and hasn't really had the chance to
be told in a different setting without people feeling upside or triggered. And I
would say probably especially from Moira because she wasn't there. Yeah, well,
and the experience of all of them recognizing she was at home for three days
where her children were kidnapped, her husband went missing, and she was just
sitting there like waiting for the police to like find something or do something.
I mean, talk about the trauma she went through, absolutely waiting for something
to happen. And then all of a sudden she turns around and her kids
are back in bed, and her husband climbs in the window and like he's
like a whole different person now. And don't forget Grandma is telling her that
she's a character from a storybook. Oh yeah, that too. She's probably
Wendy's probably been telling her, don't worry Darling there he's off to find them
and never Land and Mars probably like everyone has lost their minds and my children
are missing, my husband's missing, and my grandma has finally lost it.
Britney, you need to say yeah, really loud and with a deep voice,
because you just indicated that everything will be better because we're off to Never
Never not not or legitimately Ben's doing the double Metal Devil sign for anyone who
can't. No, no Devil's sign. No, I am so cool and
I am all that is metal and it's okay. I am multiple things.
My identity is multiple things. And don't make me get off the guitar and
tread right now, because I'll do it. But yeah, I think what
you're saying, Hannah, like I said, I think would just be really
helpful for Myra, just to like know what the hell happened and know it
from like you said, they all were separated and so knowing from everyone's perspective,
I mean poor little Maggie. Yeah, Nah, lays off singing a
on a deck at some point. So I guess they let her wander around.
I guess where did she even go for most of the movie. I'm
not even just like hanging out. It's gone somewhere wandering around in their night
gown. She's often never an Evland guys forgotten. Sorry. Yeah, So
so that's what I think would be. That's what I think would be helpful
for the family. Um. Yeah, all right, Benjamin, So I
guess that leaves me. Um. I have not talked about hypnosis in a
while, and this case seems like one that would be really really beneficial for
hypnosis, and I think Peter would be my first target for that. I
am very curious as I'm thinking about it now because we haven't realized we have
not mentioned Rufio. We haven't. Oh well, there's so much in this
movie There's night no matter how much I would love it to be a three
hour episode on this movie no, which I also forgot was a two and
a half hour movie when I watched it last night and was like, whoa,
But that's what I thought, So I'll go back to that anyway.
Treatment purpose, I would want to do hypnosis, and doctor Sanderson here nailed
exactly why, because ego strengthening and getting people to feel comfortable enough to face
that which has been locked away by their subconscious needs to sometimes be treated by
calming the body in a way that it innately feels safe. And sometimes treatment
techniques like hypnosis and MDR are very, very valuable because they help calm the
body in an innate way and pair that relaxing response with distressing information when they
enter the treatment phase. But when you enter the ego strengthening phase before you
do that, when you recognize that a client who has been so chronically dissociated
for grief or for trauma, or for both that in order to gain access
to those files Brittany mentioned that have been corrupted that were once strengths but now
got corrupted with information that makes them feel dramatically unsafe to the parts that have
kept them. Getting someone to a state where their body is calm, their
mind is calm, and they can essentially for the first time in quite a
while, interact with the parts they choose to in the order they choose to
is something that you can produce with hypnosis. And I know we've talked a
lot about magic and therapy being magic, and hypnosis gets a bad rap for
being magical and being this process that can control people. And as I covered
for a good long time in our episode on Get Out, that is nonsense.
Hypnosis is not magic. It is something that is a organic, innate
state we are all capable of reaching. And all hypnosis is self hypnosis.
It is not something that I can do to you. It is a state
I can help you find and help reinforce. And why I think it would
be valuable for Peter is because he's obviously feeling so chronically unsafe and fractured and
divided that he is never present ever, and that's why you can't keep track
of anything or stay focused on anything. And he engages sort of in one
separate mode at a time that forgets the needs of the other parts, which
is exactly what happens when we enter an associated state like that, that when
you focus on the needs of one mode you've created for yourself, you fully
immerse in that mode, and you engage those functions and you complete those tests
to the best of your ability, so well, in fact, that you
forget entirely about your other identities and the needs that those other identities have.
And I think we see that when we see a version of Peter that is
so successful at being a lawyer and managing mergers and acquisitions and in this high
pressure, high stress environment that fully requires him to operate in a flow state,
which is positive dissociation. We need to do exactly the opposite in order
to treat him, which is to slow everything down, get his mind undivided,
unfractured, and just calm. And hypnosis is amazing at producing that.
I have used that with high power police officers, the people who are in
command ranks, and I have used it with people who are high powered business
executives, all sorts of things, people whose attention has to be divided at
all times. And part of why it's so effective for them is for the
first time in forever, they can be grounded and feel integrated, like they
are the president in charge of their cabinet, not a passive observer to the
wild antics of their out of control cabinet members. And Peter needs that more
than anybody, and I think that would be executive want to do is spend
quite a bit of time doing ego strengthening work. Whether I choose hypnosis,
the MDR, quite likely some blend in order to help Peter realize that your
strength lies when you can be your integrated self and find all of the strengths
that you have squirreled away in these parts and use them together and draw from
them all and not feel a need, a constant, draining need to actively
shut out parts of who you are, because when we do that, we
lose the strengths that they are out of fear that we will disregulate them.
And to go back to my cabinet model, your president part does not want
your secretary of defense to just stand up and say fucking nuke them, just
fucking you know. You know who's not a problem the country we knuked,
you know why, Because we knuked them. They're obliterated. Will make them
like Sarah Connor and Terminator two. Hang on to that fence, bitch bye.
That's what will happen. And that part of you is good at that,
But your secretary of state is going no, no, no, no,
no no, no, no, no no no. We don't do
that. That's not how, and that's not how. Our allies will not
like that. You'll show up, you'll press the buttonyn go you're nuked,
and cause all sorts of problems, and then you'll just disappear and leave me
to pick up the pieces. And all the while the President is standing there
with his hands over his ears or her ears, going ah as these two
loud parts are fighting, and Peter has so successfully sectioned off some of his
strengths, because sometimes sometimes you need your secretary of state to stand up and
say, hey, knock it off and find the ability to be tough.
And you can't do that. You can't do that if you're not integrated,
and Peter would need to be integrated to find the parts of him that can
be fun dad, the parts of him that can be a leader, the
parts of him that can be present so that when things interfere, he doesn't
activate and dissociate into a different role. Which Robin was so good, so
good at facially acting. He could glaze his eyes over in a way that
let you know he was dissociating, and he did it when he was hanging
from the mast, and he did it when he would take those phone calls,
and he did it when he was trying to be a pirate and maintain
his cover, even when he was having his heartbroken by his sun playing baseball
with hook. Robin was so good at that. There was a reason Robin
Williams went to Juliard, and that is it. And he demonstrated what you
see in clients all the time when they're like that, and being able to
reground, reintegrate, find your strengths and realize that you don't have to shift
in and out of modes that might be incompatible with one another. What you
need is strength from all of those and you need to be able to be
calm enough that you can realize, my strengths are only online when I am
confident that I as I am am enough and have everything I have ever needed
to solve any problem I come across, and traumatized clients have forgotten that.
All right. Well we'll take our final break here and then we will go
into final thoughts. All right, So so you should go last, because
you love this movie and you need to gush, and I can see it
bursting out of you already. So Ben, you want to go first,
Sure, I'll go first. This movie I think I've had a weird relationship
with as a kid, because my parents were very very much into the Mary
Martin version of the play of Peter Pan, and had a weird relationship with
other versions, which now I understand, having watched the Disney cartoon of Peter
Pan as an adult and gone, you wow, people will not be watching
that again because it's racist and horrid. But watching this one, there were
quite a few scary parts and it came out and I was six, So
I think this is I've kept some weird distance from it. It's a wonderful
film, it really is. It's a wonderful film, but I think I
don't have the attachment to it I normally do to it pretty much any Robin
Williams film, because that man may be among my favorite three actors, and
he's just so good in everything, and he's so good in this one.
And who better to be a man child who doesn't know he's a man child
and is stuck in two different roles then Robin, Yes, but you know,
and he was. He was so good at being that like fun dad
role and seeing him have to flip that in this was so good, like
watching it like the acting have to be, like this part of me is
so we restrainted it's going to come bursting out, and then it does and
he's Genie all of a sudden. And I do love this movie. I
think it's good. Has so many good messages about realizing and reintegrating your child
part into your adult self and realizing that play is a part of the human
experience and you need play in order to improvise, and you need to be
able to improvise in order to survive, and you can't operate in this life
of rules and rigidity and adherent to decorum, like we see Robin try to
adapt this stereotypical English way of living in this movie does such a wonderful job
of trying to remind adults that if you lose that part of yourself, it
can be gone, but just because it's been gone doesn't mean it's gone forever.
And I love that about this. I love the way it shows kids
being so loving and capable of caring for each other and playing off each other,
and that childlike imagination is shown so well, and that when adults by
into that they might just find some ways to solve problems again that don't make
them feel overwhelmed entirely, that they just roll with it. I did find
myself wondering how Rufio's death just was so inconsequential, and that part is interesting
because this huge emotional scene comes there, their leader who is slowly relinquished the
control back to Peter Pan once Peter proves himself to be Peter, then dies
fighting Hook and then everything just is happy again and nobody mentions his name ever
again. That that that I found is weird. But the production of this,
the kids, the acting, just everything is so good. It's so
good. I think this movie will not ever fail to pass the test of
time because of how powerful the messaging is. And I think it's great and
I liked approaching it as an adult seeing so many different aspects of it than
The thing that sticks out to me most in my head when I think about
this movie is I really don't want to be put in a box and if
someone drops scorpions in it. But I like this movie. I think it's
it's really really good. It's not my favorite version of Peter Pan, but
I do very much enjoy it. Right, doctor Sanders, some would you
like to go next? Sure? One of the scenes that we didn't really
talk about either, just because it didn't quite fit into our little order today
was the scene where the Ruffio draws the line in the sand and says,
like people who believe on one side, people who don't on the other,
and then they go through this back and forth piece. And what stuck out
to me as an adult now was how uncomfortable that scene made me as a
kid, because it really had this point of like people have a voice and
they can speak up to what they need and in that society, although Rufio
was technically the leader at that time, like you know, there was a
little piece of like, you know, if you want to if you want
to be on that side, you can be on that side. If you
want to challenge us, you can challenge this, and you know, although
I'm the leader, like let's play this out, let's see what happens.
And I think, as a child, although it didn't come from my family
that I didn't have a voice. I think it came from my own anxiety
of not wanting to look dumb. But I definitely found myself at the backup
classrooms. I didn't engage in a lot of conversation or curiosity in those spaces.
To see this little kid as now as an adult, where I do
feel like I can embrace my voice and I can talk about things and I
can navigate my world in a different way. To see this little kid say
like but wait, Rufia, what about this? And what about this?
And remembering that discomfort, it was really powerful for me to like replay and
take as a new lesson to be thinking of how people can integrate some of
this story into their own experiences. That's a scene that I'll totally have available
in my therapy office now that I've reseen the movie recently and say, like,
let's talk about like how hard it was for this kiddo to stand up
to this leader who's twice his age, twice his size, for somebody that
he barely knows, just because he's not sure that he belongs one side or
the other yet like he wants to keep exploring, wants to keep asking questions,
and that curiosity is in such a huge element of a well, you
know, or a strong self self esteem and having having been led by people
who didn't shirk away from having a voice. Yeah, exactly, um,
Hannah, And then I'll go, okay, Um, I love this movie.
I've always loved this movie. I love Robin Williams. I've seen this
movie so many times that I know the dialogue. Um, I even though
I made myself rewatch the last ten minutes of it for someone completely unknown reason,
um, to make sure that I remembered everything I wanted to say.
I think so. I love this movie, and I think it was really
I think it was really fun to see adults who could act like they were
kids again, or who could experience those feelings and thoughts and emotions in a
film so much as a kid movies the adults are arguing or just not paying
attention to the kids at all, maybe, and so having one where they're
actively engaged in some aspects and also able to be childlike themselves. I think
always gave me a lot of hope as a kid that no matter what happened,
I could still be a little kid if I wanted to. And I
think that is a part of why I love this movie so much, because
even now that kind of a little bit of what you were saying, doctor
Sanderson, like, even now as an adult, it feels it feels a
little different and feels like it meant. It meant so much when I saw
that film for the first time. So I love this movie. I'll watch
it a billion more times, especially since I own it in pretty much every
version you can own a movie. I have the DVD. I bought it
on Amazon when I couldn't find it when I wanted to watch it last year
or sometime. So yeah, so I love this movie. Do you still
have the vhs? I have? Any vachsses that existed in my life were
left in Michigan when I moved here. So no, I was going to
ask about the LaserDisc version. No, no laser disc, no lasers.
I don't think any of us are cool enough to have the laser disc good
times laser discs. Well, I'll go Yeah. So, like I said,
this is one of my favorite movie. This is actually the very first
movie I ever saw in theaters. I must have been five or six.
Um, we have an angled, Ohio where I'm from. They have a
one screen theater and the at the end of a strip ball so next to
the camart. So my dad took me to that when I was very little,
and I remember watching it. I remember loving it. I know my
dad will be listening to this episode and I told him we were recording today
and so shout out to you, dad for taking me to this movie.
I remember making him watch Mork and Mindy after because I was like, so
into what Rob Williams just I needed more of this movie after I saw it.
So I love this movie. I associate it with Christmas, so I
watch it Christmas time. I think it's one of the best John Williams soundtracks,
which really, I know was a big thing to say because he has
a lot of soundtracks that was actually incorrect, But that's okay. But the
scene where I think the scene always sticks out to me is when they come
home from the banquet and they realize that the kids are missing, and there's
the hook line up the wall and the music and the vibes and Liza being
like the children are screaming like that. I think is the first time I
ever felt like, oh, movies like this, like that feeling of like
I'm being taken to another experience, and so I get like that feeling whenever
I watched it. Every time, I really like to listen to the soundtrack
on Spotify, and so I will watch this movie a bajillion more times.
I also owned on DVD. It was on HBO Max right now because I
couldn't figure out how to hook up my DVD player to my TV, so
I had to find it. But yeah, I love this movie and thank
you Dad for taking me to see it when I was very, very small.
If I was on the Lost Cultureista's podcast, they always ask the question
like what is the culture that made you say culture is for you? And
this is definitely would be one of my answers to that, so very meaningful
to me. Well, on that note, will wrap up here, But
doctor Sanderson, if you want to let everyone know how they can find you,
absolutely you can find me on the web at doctor teras Anderson dot com
and then on social media, I'm at the same label doctor Terry Sanderson dot
com and what's the name of your book that's out? It is called Too
Much Not Enough Guide to Decreasing Anxiety and finding balance through intentional Choices. All
right, And as always, you can find us at Instagram, TikTok and
Facebook at popront Psychology, Twitter at popcorn Understore psych You can always email us
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happy holiday as everybody, and we're off to never Never Land o yep.