An AEDP Therapist’s Take on Inside Out 2
*spoiler alert*
If you haven’t yet heard about the film Inside Out or Inside Out 2, in some ways I feel the need to congratulate you on avoiding all things pop culture related. I also think this might be one of the rare moments that the human experience is reflected in ways that resonate with and expand our collective capacity to openly discuss the emotions we all experience.
Why Inside Out 2 Is a Must-Watch for Understanding Emotions
Inside Out 2 is a sequel, following the life of Riley Anderson as she enters puberty. The film depicts the complicated experience of surging emotions and the out-of-control way we can feel as our body experiences changes with shifting hormones. The emotions from the first film, Anger, Joy, Sadness, Fear, and Disgust, have to navigate the integration of new characters: Anxiety, Ennui, Embarrassment and Envy. We see Anxiety take over as Riley navigates the transition to high school and all of the complications that come from wanting to fit in and feel accepted. We also see a sense of self that to that point had been controlled by Joy, with only positive seeming beliefs being integrated and anything complicated or uncomfortable being held back. To me this represented the obsession in our culture with feeling happy, or positive pop psychology, and the idea that you can use your will to make yourself feel good.
Core Emotions in Inside Out 2: Introducing the Change Triangle
In AEDP, we believe that there are a series of Core Emotions: Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear and Disgust. These are represented well by Riley’s initial set of emotions. The added emotions become a little bit more complicated to characterize.
Anxiety, in the AEDP model, is considered to be an Inhibitory emotion, that is, it actually gets in the way of experiencing the core emotions. This is well represented in the film when Anxiety actually physically suppresses the Core Emotions by bottling them and then depositing them far into the nether regions of the mind where they could no longer be experienced.
Ennui, a term for a general boredom with one’s surroundings, or a disengagement, could be seen as the ‘Defences’, or ‘Protective Strategies’ in AEDP. These are ways our mind learns to disengage from our feelings or cover them up if it does not feel safe or comfortable to express them fully in our current environment. Ennui functions in a way where Riley is able to maintain a facade that prevents her true feelings from being exposed, as they have been interpreted by Anxiety as unwelcome.
Our Inhibitory Emotions and our Defences often work together to prevent access to core emotions. In AEDP this is described through the Triangle of Experience. Hilary Hendel in her book “It’s Not Always Depression” uses common language to explain the experience of emotions, coining the term the “Change Triangle”.
Using the Change Triangle, you can see that the core emotions are what allow us to access our authentic self. All of those emotions are required. For me, the true message of the film came at the end, when every experience Riley had felt through life, including the painful, and uncomfortable moments were released and reintegrated into herself, allowing her beliefs and thoughts to encompass all of what she had experienced. From this place we are finally able to access compassion, calm and all of the other states necessary to remain grounded and present in our lives. While the perception that only emotions seen as positive should be included, all emotions are positive in that they give us valuable insight into ourselves, our values, and our priorities and are needed data points for us to make decisions that are fully in alignment with our truth.
Learning that All Emotions are Good
My hope is that films like this continue to normalize discussions about the impacts of anxiety, and how necessary our full emotional experience is to have a grounded and accurate sense of self in our lives. Normalizing the full spectrum of emotions and avoiding labeling them as positive or negative is important in allowing them to be fully felt and for us to make the best decisions we can in alignment with our values and needs. For example, without access to anger, we might not know where we need to place boundaries, or what is going on in our relationships that does not actually feel ok with us, causing us to find ourselves in places that end up being unhealthy or even dangerous.
How Can Therapy Help?
If watching this film caused you to recognize that Anxiety is playing too big of a role in controlling your life, or that there are emotions that would be normal to feel but may currently be suppressed, reaching out to work with a therapist that is trained in processing this can be incredibly valuable. Allowing those feelings to be accessed can shift our behaviour, for example, Riley was able to make choices prioritizing relationships she valued once she was able to feel her feelings and understand why they were there, instead of avoiding them.
At the Commons Wellness Collective, we practice from an AEDP lens and are trained to help you reconnect with your full emotional experience. If this is piquing your interest, please reach out, we would love to chat with you about how we can support you on your journey back to your authentic self.
