Speaker 1: Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
movies and psychoanalyze them.
Speaker 2: My name is Brittany.
Speaker 1: Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by.
Speaker 3: Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinozo, marriage and family therapists.
Speaker 1: 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 and
all forms.
Speaker 2: Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
we aren't your therapist.
Speaker 4: If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
a local mental health provider.
Speaker 1: Hi. Everyone, So we are finally talking about a Godzilla movie.
We are specifically discussing Godzilla Minus one. This movie came
out in twenty twenty three. It's gotten a lot of
well deserved record ignition, even Oscars, and it has been
requested several times. I think as soon as it came
out and started gaining traction, we were hearing about it.
So we are finally discussing it. We will be specifically
discussing trauma war driven trauma. As this movie takes place
immediately after and then a few years following World War Two,
we will also be talking about moral injury, specifically shame
and guilt. Along with that, we'll also be talking about
collective trauma as this was a time in which Japan
was going through a major identity shift as a nation
following their loss in World War Two.
Speaker 2: So we are following several people, but.
Speaker 1: Mostly Koichi Shikashima, who is a kami Kazi pilot in
World War Two who can't follow through with the kami
Kazi action. He comes back to a military base where
the mechanics are saying that his plane had a problem
and that's why he couldn't fulfill the kama Kaze action,
and he witnesses Godzilla take out all his comrades pretty
much there on that island, and then we follow him
as he enters back into civilian society post the loss
of Japan and World War Two. The how's the word
I want to say, the mistreatment he receives and the
judgment he receives from his community because of his inability
to follow through with his Kamakazi obligation. And then we
also witness him try to establish a life if he
can post all these experiences and then you know, fight
in Godzilla.
Speaker 2: So let's jump into kind of like the basics.
Speaker 1: So this in a lot of ways is a war movie,
and that we are working with a lot of characters
that are obviously dealing with the trauma that is war.
And so I think what is most obvious, and I
think what a lot of people liked about this movie
when they first experienced it was how well it betrayed
post traumatic stress disorder specifically as we I think most
of us witness it through the main character, Kowichi. And
so I'm wondering, I'm gonna throw it to you, Hannah,
what were some of the things that you saw that
fit the criteria of PTSD with our main character.
Speaker 4: So we see Koechi experience nightmares. We see him experience
full body flashbacks where he actually thinks he's back in
the situation that caused him to have a traumatic experience.
Speaker 2: We also see him feel like the world isn't real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that because I
know you're more familiar with association than I am. But
it does seem like he has several moments of would
you call that derealization. Yes, absolutely, Okay, could you explain
a little bit for people listening what exactly I hate
that word is so and I feel like I always
have to like chew it when I say it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: So what exactly is the realization in the context of dissociating.
Speaker 4: Essentially, it's feeling like the world isn't real, the world
around you is unreal.
Speaker 2: Or that you're not in the right timeline, or that
things aren't what they seem to be, or that you're
misperceiving things, or that things distort on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've heard people say who experience geralization, it can
feel like you're in a movie or that the world
around you is plastic. But with him, he asks, He
has those moments like you're saying, like where he has
these flashbacks or these nightmares, and he is asking people
like am I really alive?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: He seems to keep having this recurring traumatic symptom of
like thinking maybe he really did die in the war?
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, And we see him experience that many many
different times, and we also see how it affects his
family situation as well. We see how him you know,
a part of having a PTSD diagnosis is also the
depressive symptoms that come with that, and we see him
really not wanting to connect with anyone. I think a
part of that is because he doesn't feel real in
some ways, and so I think that's a part of
why he doesn't want to connect with anyone, and also
because emotionally he feels like he's dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a trippier aspect of PTSD that people
don't talk about as much, that you can really feel
disconnected from the world around you. Some contexts I didn't
give when talking about the plot is when our main
character comes back to his hometown, he immediately gets caught
up with a woman named Nariko who is taking care
of a baby that she just found. What's the baby's
name again, Akiko Kiko. And so not only is he
thrown back into society, he's also thrown into this odd
family dynamic where Nurico just kind of like follows him
home and then doesn't leave, and then it kind of
goes to like two years later where they're all just
kind of together.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I think in a lot of ways, I
don't know that she could have survived without doing that.
She couldn't oh for real, like that was a part
of that was a part of survival mode for her
and for a Kiko as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, as you're saying, the part where a lot
of I think a big part of how his PTSD
also shows up, as you were saying, is that he's
also part of this family unit that's not technically his
but wants to be his, and he is not able
to let them in. He really continues to keep them
at arm's length for a good amount of time, both
Noriico and Akiko, even though they very clearly care about
him and they don't see him the way he sees himself.
A criteria of PTSD can be negative thoughts about self,
a lot of hopelessness, helplessness, things like that, and across
the board we see I think every.
Speaker 2: Symptom negative alterations to cognitions is the formal DSM language
for it, and he clearly has those all over the place.
He persistently sees himself as this shameful, undeserving goblin of
a human and he keeps himself restricted from connecting to
other people because of the amount of shame, guilt, blame
he places on himself. He feels responsible. Part of his
nightmares are seeing his parents burn in the fire bombings
that happened in and around Tokyo. America was not kind
to Japan. He in part of his flashbacks, recognizes his
parents and most of the people in his neighborhood and
why his entire neighborhood is decimated is because of firebombings,
not the nuclear attacks. He's not in the cities that
were nuclear attacked, but his city was firebombed and recognizing that.
Part of him not completing his mission in his mind
is the consequences that his family died and then he's
left alone and that Japan lost the war. He places
a good deal that blame on himself.
Speaker 5: Let's take our first break here and be at back.
Speaker 2: As always.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy listener to our podcast and would like
to let us know and let other people know about us,
the best way to do that is to leave a
review wherever you listen to podcasts. We really appreciate it
and it is truly the best and cheapest way to
support us and actually get our name out there to
people that may not have listened to us yet.
Speaker 5: So thank you, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Ben, So, where you were going is going into
the cultural context and the moral injury aspect of specifically
his PTSD, because what you're starting to go into is
the context that is very specific to this situation, to Japan,
to being a kamikaze, to the situation that Armin character's in,
where he gets blamed repeatedly by people around him that
it is his faults that this stuff didn't happen. Like
when he shows up in his neighborhood, he gets smacked
around by the neighbor Ko, Samiko.
Speaker 5: You're really great with these names, girl, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: He gets smacked around from Semiko and she pretty much says, like,
my kids are dead because you are a coward. The
fact that you exist and you're staying in front of
me means that you're a piece of shit and a coward.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 5: And because of you, my kids are dead.
Speaker 1: And he gets the pretty much the same reception by
Tachibana when he touches down in his plane the very beginning,
when they realize that his plane doesn't have any problems
and that he.
Speaker 2: Was he chickened out of his mission, he was a coward.
As far as how he's seeing himself, he is a
product of his society. That's the voice he uses. She
is an externalization of that and represents the cultural value,
which is important, but remembering that that is internal and external.
The voice of oppression from inside. Negative alterations to cognitions
and mood are the internal mm hmm. The societal crushing
from the outside is the shaming, yes, but the guilt
is over his own inaction, and recognizing shame is generally
for what we did do. Guilt is what we didn't.
With Kuchi, one of the things it's important to recognize
that he's going to have the internal and the external
pressures and holding him accountable for what he was unable
to do and the cowardice he showed. He it's important
to remember that he not only failed once, but he
failed twice. Right at the beginning of the film, when
he lands his plane, he is retreating from his mission,
which is understandable, but don't get me wrong. Like his
mission is to blow himself and his plane up attacking
an American ship. That's his mission. He is not expected
to survive, which culturally is supposed to be a tremendous
act of honor. However, human instinct and the culturation don't
always agree. As the prime directive if any living creature
is to stay alive, and when you're being asked to
do something that makes you unalive, as honorable or not,
as a culture may present it. When it comes to
the moment of and knowing you're going to die if
you do it, your body and your mind may disagree
with your culturation. Yeah, slangle.
Speaker 1: People always say if that ever happened to me, I
would do this, and it's like maybe, but you're not
going to know for sure until something like that happens
to you.
Speaker 2: Correct, Correct, I cannot stand that. Yeah, the number of
people that walk around with that nonsense, like, well, if
somebody broke into my house like blah blah blah, you
do exactly whatever you had to. Yeah, you don't know
what you would do. However, whoever broke into your house
was six foot eight and built like a brick shit
house and caught you unawares. You ain't going to be
who you think you're going to be. Yeah, because if
that person thoroughly dominates you, you're going to lose that
and you don't know how that's going to feel and
what you're going to think or do and what choices
you will make when you have to because when you
don't have to, you don't access the same structures of
your brain. You just don't. And you know, he Kuchi
here in this perceived accurately that there wasn't a lot
of war left. The war was clearly lost by this point,
the war was in its last days. This attack and
loss of his life would have no purpose. And with
that knowledge, he claims that there's a malfunction with his
weapon lands his plane on a remote repair island. However,
as the as you guys mentioned before, the mechanics who
are there are like, ah, so sir, we can't find
any problems with your plane. Yeah, and I'm sure he's
not the only one, probably not.
Speaker 1: You know, I was reading when I was reading a
little bit about kamikaze piloting prior.
Speaker 5: To this episode.
Speaker 1: They were talked about that and how people would come
back a lot, and how one guy even came back
so many times that I think he ended up getting executed.
Speaker 2: Displaying cowardice would not be tolerated in Japanese culture, especially
not within their warrior ethos, just would not be tolerated.
So yeah, it'd get executed. That makes sense for what
would have been cultural appropriate at that time and throughout
much of their history, showing that kind of cowardice in
the face of an enemy would not be looked upon favorably,
not in any military but especially not theirs. And not
only does he do that, so he fails the country,
but when Godzilla attacks, the mechanics tell him to go
get in his plane because the twenty millimeter cannon on
it can kill anything. They tell him. He gets into
the plane, and he does not fire his weapon on Godzilla.
And because he does not fire and does not follow
through with the plan, that is a second military action
that he does not take out of cowardice. So he
sees it. It's not my words, that's me speaking through
his right. I don't hold any blame for somebody that
doesn't do something that will make them die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and something that is also so totally removed from
how we behave as humans outside of.
Speaker 2: War, correct and war or attack, any life or death situation.
Any assumption that I understand how he was feeling, how
he behaved, how his senses were reading the situation is unfair.
So I am echoing the voice that I think he
is Shane showing himself. I just want to be super
clear about that it's my it's not my values, it's
his that I'm echoing. Yeah, because the reality, like we
establish is that someone who is about who understands that
any action I take against a monster here is the
same example I gave of some six foot eight brick
shit house of a dude breaking into your house. And
no matter what ideas you think you have about yourself,
your body's going to tell you you're going to lose. Unless
you are also built like a professional wrestler, you're in trouble.
And if you can't get to a weapon to equalize
that fight, you're in trouble, and your body will recognize
that and you will submit surrender. Fawn talk. You ain't
going to be Captain Badass roundhouse kicking this dude in
the face, because what you're going to see about him
is that he is a clear head and shoulders taller
than you and much broader, and that if you get
in a physical fight, you're going to lose. Now translate
that to a giant fucking monster.
Speaker 4: That also that he's seeing for the first time, that
they're all seeing for the first time. It would make
a lot of sense that anyone would not be able
to follow through with what they needed to do well.
Speaker 1: Also, I would say for him, it's not that something
bonkers is happening in front of him that his brain's
trying to process like a godzilla has risen from the sea.
He also is in the middle of a full trauma
experience already, like he is going through something like he's
fresh off of coming back from the Kama Kaze experience,
you know, like getting out of his plane. So his
brain's probably already in a frozen state, and then this happens,
so of course he cannot.
Speaker 2: Follow through.
Speaker 1: No, his brain is like scrambled eggs.
Speaker 2: Correct, He's already compromised by yes, where he's at, and
when emergencies arise, we can come in and out of that.
That's part of what structural association is about, is we can,
pretty much, no matter what we're going through, respond to
a threat. How effectively we are able to do that
is a different discussion. But once he has already displayed
that freeze and flight response instead of fight, which he
was supposed to cultually engage, it makes sense that he
found that again quickly when faced yet again with insurmountable
odds to which his action would not likely do anything.
The important thing to know is that because he didn't
follow through the plan, those men that courageously started firing
small arms to distract the monster immediately died. Yeah, and
that is really rough. They died, and Kouichi is the
only other survivor of that attack, and he was hobbled,
He was massively injured because he I think got a
stepped on or thrown mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's him and the Tachibana are like the
two people that make it out and get rescued.
Speaker 2: Tachibana right, yes, yeah, but he got his foot was Yeah,
Tachibana's foot was broken, is broken and mangled like he
got stepped on or thrown yea by Godzilla Wally. They
were shooting rifles and then he was supposed to get
in Kuici supposed to get in his plane and fire
the cannon at it, which was the best weapon they
had available, but still would have had no effect, as
we learned later, it would have done nothing. Yeah, and
that's the truth, and his senses would perceive that like, yeah,
I don't think this is gonna matter either, So he
freezes and hides, which is probably what would have happened
in real life, somebody looked at that and maybe they
would have fought, maybe not, maybe they would have used
the opportunity to hide. But that's not a conscious choice.
A conscious choice that is trained out of you can
override that sometimes, but once the odds tip beyond your training,
like something like a monster you see, your senses will
but reoverride training and throw you back into a response
from your body that says nope. We assess that is
a nope nope, and you freeze, You shut down, and
go ah, I'm not attacking that unless it sees me,
and right now it doesn't suit me. So I'm a
hide because hiding makes more sense based on the sensory
inputs I'm getting from my eyeballs. And it's really important
that we understand that. Because senses communicate directly to the
right side of our brain, which is where the response lives.
Reaction is based on perception. Reality is from perception. So
when we see that he froze, he froze twice. The
amount of guilt he experiences not only the theoretical the
cultural side, but the immediate of watching knowing I failed,
then I failed again in the same way, and this
time I actively watched people get devoured, mangled, destroyed by
a kaiju.
Speaker 1: Well, and then the added layer two of survivor guilt too.
He's the only one besides Tatsubana that makes it out
of that situation. So it's all these layers of guilt
and shame that are just piling on top of him.
Speaker 2: Correct, And because Tashibana survives when they're on that boat
ride back. Yeah, one, he had an incredulous experience that
only one other person knows about. But he also can't
talk about it, Yeah, or he'll seem insane. That's also
very true. He can't really say why, and he is
now bound by shame and guilt to not talk about
it and practicality that hey, there's a giant dinosaur monster
that lives on the islands. Notice he says that to
no one, but that is the event that really drove
the dagger into him with PTSD.
Speaker 1: And also the secrecy too of not telling people are
having to be very cautious about telling people that he
was a kamikaze pilot. So it's a lot of things
he's keeping inside to avoid the consequences of sharing that
with someone else and how that will change how they
see him, takes.
Speaker 2: Him a long time to talk about it.
Speaker 4: I think he's still so activated on such a regular basis,
I having those nightmares. It seems like he's having him
every night.
Speaker 1: Well, he says, the war isn't over for me yet, yeah,
which is such a beautifully simplistic way to say what
we're talking about, which is that it is haunting him
and he is still in that stuck place with his identity,
with his shame and guilt. Because as we see, like
through the course of the few years that the movie covers,
which I thought was really interesting that people like his
neighbor lady name again Sumiko, smiko're so awesome, Samiko. There's
people around him that forgive him, that grow to love
him and care about him.
Speaker 5: You know, people around him, they're they're able.
Speaker 2: To shift, including Sumacole. Yeah that's what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even her, who was a heinous to him, understandably
so when he first got back, everyone warms to him
and feels better about him, but he still can't feel
better about himself, which I think is also like an
interesting thing to note that even when everyone around you
is giving you contradictory information, that internalized stuff can still
eat at you for as long as it will.
Speaker 2: That's what those negative alterations are. That's exactly what they
are and why it's so potent and powerful and why
PTSD isn't the same as depression. Depression does that, but
PTSD does it with added life because depression is generally speaking,
a chemical deficiency that causes those feelings to exist. And
there's not always an explanation. Sometimes there is, right, sometimes
something happened that causes that. But depending on what that
something that happened was, that's where we get in the
kid or the criteria for PTSD.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because with PTSD, the parts of it that are
you know, having low self worth things like that, those
are connected to an actual experience correct that you had.
So it is a lot harder to challenge that idea internally,
whereas when it's depression you can kind of hang on
to more idea. This is coming from like an irrational,
highly emotional place where my brain is working against me.
And with this it's like, oh no, like something has happened.
Like I always told my clients, like it's like a
door in your brain has been kicked open and it's
never going to close. So there's like a reality. Now
that you are aware of that, you're never not going
to be aware of whether it's I'm not as safe
as I thought I was, I'm not as brave as
I thought I was, which I think is the situation
with our main character. And you will never not know
that or that experience will never not be a reality
that's true to you versus someone who hasn't had that
door kicked open.
Speaker 5: They can still live in that sort of.
Speaker 1: Surrealist idea of like, well, that could happen hypothetically, but
it doesn't necessarily feel real to me.
Speaker 2: And for someone that just said she didn't understand derealization,
super great, you just explained it.
Speaker 1: No, I know it, but I always well, I always
get derealization, depersonalization confused the word. Yeah, so I always
want to double check that with someone like Hannah, who
I know is up dissociations academic but yeah, we're best friends.
Speaker 2: Me too, girl, me too. Yeah, because that dissociation component
is critical. All the criteria, all five categories for PTSD
are necessary to make the diagnosis. They don't have to
have all the sub categories, but they have to have
negative mood depression. They have to have avoidance. They have
to have some degree of sensory disturbance, they have to
have some degree of sleep disturbance. There has to be
several things that add up.
Speaker 1: And like I said, with him, what's also so upsetting,
like if you had to work with him, is that
all these negative thoughts he's having about himself that come
from this experience are then being reinforced by the environment too,
where people do hate him and slap him around and
scream at him and say it should have been you,
And so that only further they're obviously strengthens these negative
self components and makes it hard to question them.
Speaker 5: It just feels really real, and.
Speaker 4: I think that he is in a place where it's
hard to believe anyone about who he is and.
Speaker 2: What he is.
Speaker 4: People really feel like, oh, if you just be positive,
if you just do this. People don't have the capacity
to absorb something positive. When the worst fucking thing that's
ever happened to a person can happen, they don't have
the connection to that because now they're not real or
they're dead inside or whatever. It's not just something that
is PTSD is not something that's just gonna magically fucking
go away.
Speaker 5: It's not something that.
Speaker 2: You can just be positive about.
Speaker 5: That's not how it works.
Speaker 4: That's just that's just not that's not even close to
touching what actually needs to happen when we're working with
people who struggle through trauma, and he.
Speaker 2: Certainly, and we're also seeing him.
Speaker 4: Something else that I think is beautiful about the movie
is that we're also seeing him have like the initial
experience right as soon as he gets back, he's shamed automatically.
He has PTSD symptoms very clearly, and then we get
to see him over time and we get to see
how maybe those symptoms have changed a little bit, but
he's still experiencing pretty intense PTSD symptoms for how long
it's been from the time that things happen. And he
also probably fits complex trauma, oh, certainly because of how
many things happen all right in a row, right, because
so he has so the cowardice piece those two things
that happened. Then he all he sees all those men die,
then he comes back. Then he comes back, finds out
that his parents are dead, his town is demolished, and
his neighbor doesn't like him anymore, demolished, and his country
is also demolished.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So.
Speaker 4: Everything every rug that he is standing on got yanked
out from underneath him and then like buried him in
a hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the foundations, all the pillars of his identity. Yeah,
we're destroyed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like even just like the layer of demoralization of
being on the losing side of a world war that
we picked the wrong side and we were punished for.
Speaker 2: It, and in their case of Japan, quite literally picked
instigated to the point that their admiral, their chief, you know,
leader of war, Emiallyammoto, said, I fear we have awoken
a sleeping giant.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think you're definitely right Handah, it's an
ongoing thing for him because he's still having to live
in the town that is wrecked and having to figure
out how to make money and how to support this
woman and child that just like literally show up. So
it is like the stress is ongoing and.
Speaker 2: Epic that not only does he not deserve, but if
he lets them in, he will poison them, yeah, with
his badness. So it's not that it's one more than
the other, it's that it's both simultaneously, and that is
an extraordinarily complex component of his traumatic symptoms and presentation
and why it's so stuck and why Hannah is one
thousand percent correct that he meets the criteria for complex
PTSD because the amount of events that happened, the degree
to which they happened, and the profound terribleness and overwhelming
destruction of everything. But there is yet another component that
we need to talk about with why, and we'll talk
about that after a break. So the one component we
haven't talked about, though we may have alluded to, is
called moral injury. Moral injury is a component that affects people.
And I'm going to go ahead and read some of
the things from the VA here from PTSD VA dot
gov because understanding why sometimes some events that people go
through stay with them on what almost seems like a
spiritual shaming level fits this movie and this character to
at he has violated things on levels beyond just humanity.
He has violated things to a spiritual level with himself.
From the VA, in traumatic or unusually stressful circumstances, people
may perpetuate, fail to prevent, or witness events that contradict
deeply held moral beliefs and expectations. That sounds pretty much
like our friend here does it not, it really does.
When someone does something that goes against their beliefs, this
is often referred to as an active commission, and when
they fail to do something in line with their beliefs,
that is referred to as an act of omission. We
have both. Individuals may also experience betrayal from leadership, others
in positions of power, or peers that can result in
adverse outcomes. Moral injury is the distressing psychological, behavioral, social,
and sometimes spiritual aftermath of exposure to such events. A
moral injury can occur in response to acting or witnessing
behaviors that go against an individual's values and moral beliefs,
and they go on later to describe guilt, shame, disgust,
and anger that are some of the hallmark reactions. And
moral injuries also typically impact in individual's spirituality to the
point that a person may have difficulty understanding how one's
beliefs and relationships with a higher power can be true.
Given the horrific event the person experience, leading to uncertainty
even about their own previously held beliefs, it is quite
a powerful, overwhelming sense of destruction of self. The events
that we are describing pretty much nail this to a tee.
He has not acted in the way he is deeply
ingrained and sworn to do. Pilots are officers, they are
leaders of the military. He is looked at in a
position of honor that his sacrifice in war can take
out an entire aircraft carrier. That aircraft carrier is the
only way that the planes that carried firebombs could get
to his city. So how this all connects militarily is
pretty important because had he been able to take out
one of those carriers, there's a logical leap that his
brain can make a connection to maybe I could have
prevented my parents dying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is why his neighbor says that to him too,
like my kids would be alive if you weren't here,
because of the importance that his position.
Speaker 2: Was correct, and also her anger and grief that her
children are dead and everything is destroyed. She wasn't a
war fighter, so she was placing her hopes and beliefs
and whatever propaganda was coming her way. Because don't forget,
this is the forties. The world is so vastly different
on Internet communicating things, people were shown and told and
believed what the government wanted them to know, and it's
likely they believed. I don't know exactly what the propaganda
of Japan was during World War Two, but I assume
it was not we're losing the war.
Speaker 1: Oh, of course not. I don't think that's anyone's propaganda.
Is hey guys, are we the bad guys?
Speaker 2: Question work. But once the American military started capturing the
islands in the Pacific and moving up and getting closer
and closer and seizing territory and figured out how to
engineer the B twenty fours to get to be able
to take off from aircraft carriers, which they detailed pretty
well in Pearl Harbor, the movie, that really changed a
lot about what the Japanese thought and how accessible they
thought they were. And the America was developing to attack that.
We were working on training bats, and the bats would
roost in the eaves. So if the bats land on
the homes, then you detonate the bombs, sure, which means
they're not attacking in a way that can be there
can be any safety.
Speaker 1: From I mean, it's an extraordinarily and humane method.
Speaker 2: It's pretty bad. Yeah, it's pretty bad because you're not
attacking military.
Speaker 1: Targets the weh, you're attacking civilians, correct, and you're kin
a lot of bats.
Speaker 5: Also true.
Speaker 2: But if you can connect the dots of what kind
of psychological warfare that was being undertaken against the country,
you can understand why she's so angry and why people
who are supposed to be their national heroes letting her down.
Speaker 5: Oh sure of course.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah made her so furious because his betrayal and
he's alive. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I think even for that reason alone, I could see
her being upset with him absolutely, like how why are
you here? And my kids aren't correct, no matter what
his position was in the army, but I think like
the cultural significance of his role in the army, it's
just a further oh, navy, it's just a further plight,
you know, blight on the situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, all of which add up to he knows
all this. Notice he doesn't fight her, he doesn't tell
her she's wrong, not the ones.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm sure he's like this is correct. Yeah, do
whatever you want with me, bay, I like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Which he does, and he does it to himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I think is important to note that that's
also a way sometimes that people can engage in self
harm self destructive behavior when they're in these places with themselves,
whether it's PTSD, your depression. It's not necessarily the kind
of self harm that we think of, like intentionally hurting
yourself via cutting or something. But it can be this
kind of thing too, which is like letting other people
hurt you like this, or being in situations where you
will be hurt.
Speaker 2: Correct And it's such an extraordinary place of negativity that
comes from the shame and guilt that they're doing it
because they deserve to be punished for what they did
and didn't do, and that they will never be cleared
of it. And when he's saying the war isn't over
for me, is because encoded in him was a set
endpoint for the war, and he never completed his mission.
Now he never can. So that part of him that
he created dissociatively to assign value and meaning to his
own destruction through kamikaze bombing, he never got to do.
So all the suffering and everything that he went through
is a constant reminder and condition of threat and shame
and guilt, the threat ongoing. I didn't do it, so
I'm always bad and I can never be accepted back
into society.
Speaker 5: And I can't do anything to fix it.
Speaker 2: And I can't do anything to fix it, and if
I'm found out, I may be killed.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or even more shunned than I already am.
Speaker 2: So this beautiful woman and this beautiful child that calls
me daddy, Yeah, I tell her not to, even though
she doesn't have anyone else, And even his friends tell him,
why are you saying I'm not your dad?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Why are you being mean? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Exactly?
Speaker 2: They told me that. Do you know how damaging that is? Yeah?
Do you know how damaging that is to that child?
She thinks you're your dad? You're dad? To her? You
are dead? What are you doing? You're dead? You can't
tell her you're not dead.
Speaker 1: And this is the part that because it's him that's
still so in his lia trauma, that you can't really
access him by trying to make that kind of argument, right, Like,
you can't rationalize necessarily because.
Speaker 4: You can't shame him for that behavior. He's already shaming
and guilty himself.
Speaker 2: Because he's like, well, a piece of shit, So it
makes sense he's not deserving and recognizing that he's so
deeply severed that he can't. He can't survive without or
he can't he can't survive forgiveness because no forgiveness will
be real. He can never trust it because he knows
that he committed unforgivable sense he used to be willing.
Speaker 1: Well, it's corny to say this, he used to forgive
himself first, but that is the truth. He has to
be open to the idea that he is forgivable.
Speaker 2: But part of where that gets stuck is in the
idea of structural association, recognizing that people form parts to
survive the circumstances they're under. The more extreme the circumstance,
the more extreme and or limited the part a war
fighter part of a human exists only for war fighting.
The things that you have to do to survive war.
The point of moral injury and understanding it and processing
it with people is that the things you have to
do to survive these extreme circumstances require an extreme response.
A military officer may have to order a company of
men a thousand people to their death so that nineteen
thousand more have a chance to survive. But these thousand
are not going to and they will know that, and
they will know that they are pawns and they have
to order them anyway. The complexity of this is immense.
In his case in this movie, he had to order
himself to death and he didn't and now he's facing
the reckoning and he's shaming himself out of that. So
I think it's a critical thing to mention. We could
go on a deep, huge dive and talk about moral
injury probably for hours, but recognizing that that is the
component that is missing. If you don't understand that there
is a word for that, you do now. And I
recommend reading more on it and looking it up because
it is an incredibly important thing. I just did a
huge training on it that really opened my eyes that
I think more people need to do. And with the
people I supervise, I've been making sure to drive this
home because I've had a number of clients who've been
through a great amount of things that are more adequately
described by moral injury, and they are the key thing
they're holding them against themselves. I hurt someone or so
did something that I can never forgive myself for. If
people found out about what I did, my position in
society that brings me safety now, no matter how much
years I am away from this would be terminated. So
they are never safe. But if you believe strongly that
the representative of God when you were about to walk
into heaven after death will still be there with a
ledger of all the shit you did at whatever point
in time in your life and be like, suck.
Speaker 1: Bro Well, I mean yeah, I mean like the idea
of more I was raised Catholic, the idea of like
mortal sins, that there are things that you do that
are unforgivable things and then once you do them.
Speaker 5: You're fucked. You're going to go to hell.
Speaker 1: Baby, Like this idea that there is unrecoverable choices that
you can make, which sucks, and that, from what I understand,
a lot of religions have a version of that.
Speaker 5: And then because we are a very.
Speaker 1: Religious based people, like a lot of argument cultures are
based on that, of course, it translates into these things.
Speaker 2: Correct and to just tie this home and then I'll
kind of we'll let this go transition away from it
because there's a lot there's a lot of research being
done on that. There's even assessments for this. You can
get them from if you just google moral injury assessments,
you can find them from the VA even and I
recommend that because I've had clients that I've sat down
with these and done and I've been suspicious that it's
a moral injury that's keeping them stuck. I don't deserve
to feel better. I don't deserve to move on from this.
I don't deserve to heal because of what I did.
And then I've given these assessments and they've been dead
ringers ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, and it's
really opened up some eveinist discussion. And this would be
necessary here yet again I will quote from this. Another
hallmark reaction to moral injury is an inability to self
forgive and consequently engaging in self sabotaging behaviors. Examples feeling
like you don't deserve to succeed at work or relationships. Yeah,
you don't deserve to be happy, you don't deserve to
have a future, which prompts then derealization and depersonalization, because
if I can't, if I can't be okay in this world,
then perhaps but I still exist in this world. Perhaps
I am not real, or perhaps the world is not real.
Perhaps I'm not on the right timeline. Perhaps I actually
died in the war.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's just like a very ungrounded place
to be in if nothing else, like, if you're not
connected to other people, you are just kind of walking
around the world, you know, with no anchors. That's an
experience that goes against human instinct to gather and be
with others and be important to other people and to
experience those connections.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: So it would spin you out to be on the
side of it that you're talking about, which is like
I have to hold myself apart, which is something you do.
Speaker 5: Hear a lot of.
Speaker 1: Vets talk about when they come home from active duty.
It's like, I don't know how to be here. I
don't know how to be with my family. I don't
know how to be gentle, I don't know how to
be loving. I don't know how to like I don't
even want them to touch me, maybe because I'm covered
in like blood basically yep. And it's not something that
gets talked about a lot, which is good that we're
talking like you're talking about here, Ben, and we're talking
about it is because it also just conflicts with not
so much in this case, but thinking of it in
a more general sense of people that have seen war.
Is it conflicts with this idea that you've done something
honorable and now you're coming back and so you should
be like just relieved and proud of yourself. But in actuality,
there's things you had to do in war that doesn't
just like go away. Nope, whether you get accolades or
not for doing it.
Speaker 2: And I think more importantly, I mean for this story,
Yes it's important to understand in war, but these things
happen in our communities. These things happen to regular people.
They happened to police, they happen to fire, they happened
to Joe Schmoe on the street. Sometimes we have to
make decisions.
Speaker 5: Well, I think it also just happens too.
Speaker 1: Like I work with people where because of bad situations
they were in when they were younger, maybe they were
really violent to like their friends. Maybe they got into
a lot of fights, maybe they were like sexually provocative.
You know, like there are a lot of behaviors that
could come out of trauma that then you will be
acting out because what's going on within you.
Speaker 5: And then it's like.
Speaker 1: I work with people where they're still holding themselves accountable
for things they did when they were kids and teenagers
that they haven't done in like decades, correct, and they're
still like highly identifying with that version of themselves as
if they're still that quote unquote violent or aggressive or inappropriate.
And so, yeah, you're right, it's not just this kind
of stuff. I think this is the most magnified vers
people have to go to war and do horrible things,
and then I think it does also happens in the
day to day when they're putting circumstances that create a
version of yourself that you don't want to be or
that you really aren't.
Speaker 2: That doesn't exist in the civilian parts of you or
your core identity, right, but it's an extreme part that
is part of you. I think that's the part that
is really critical to highlight, to understanding this is all
parts are part of us. They are all part of
the whole. They aren't different from you. And that's where
people who go through these things understand it's really critical
to understand that language, because when we haven't had specific
training to understand that or exposure to it, you don't know,
but understanding they know it was them.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think it's the trauma also of like, oh,
I know what I capable of.
Speaker 5: I think there's trauma there too.
Speaker 2: There is. It's a wound to your identity, Yeah, your
moral foundation. I wouldn't never do this thing, but a
situation emerge where I had to. Yeah, And it's it's
critical to understand that that is a moral injury. It's
what it is. And the part of us that could
do that was part of us, is part of us.
Parts of us we form don't ever go away, not ever.
They are an adaptation to the life you have lived.
And even if you have lived twenty years beyond who
you were as a troubled child or a soldier or
what have you, you still know that some version of
you exists inside of you that could do those things.
And it's critical to overcould people to understand where the
point you're going of like that was a limited circumstance
of you that existed for only a specific reason. It
won't re emerge unless something like that it merges again,
but all they can processes it did. That's where we
see him so stuck in this film, and it's really
really important that we understand that and understand how to
have language around that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's coming to mind is just like another
very different example to help people who are listening kind
of get it fully. And this is gonna seem so random,
but right now, well, the second the third season of
Yellowjackets just ended. That's where we are in time right
now on the podcast is a recording and that show
I think is all about that that these group of
kids or teenage girls got put into a context where
they had to do banana stuff yep, that you would
never have to do. And how we see them now
as adults trying to or trying not to reckon with
what we're talking about here, which is like I spent
a good amount of time doing things that I would
have never discovered I was capable of.
Speaker 5: And now what.
Speaker 2: Correct or even a more popular example, because that's a
great one that shows great with this.
Speaker 5: Lieutenant Dan Oh he should have died in that war, yeah.
Speaker 2: And he should have been protecting his men and he
couldn't execute his function and what his family expected him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had a very comic Cozi mindset, because generationally
his family had a very comic Cozi mindset that to
die in war is the only honorable way to die.
Speaker 2: A lot of cultures have that too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, if you think about even go
all the way back too, because I'm reading the Odyssey
right now. Not to brag, it's like, that's the big
thing with like Achilles, right, like Raven Claude, damn it, dork,
don't try to stomp on me. Hufflepuff is like, that's
the that's the tragedy if you want to think about
like that of Achilles, like either he dies happy and unknown,
or he goes to war and dies in battle for
great honor and his mom's like, don't be fucking pussy
and to hear having a family, God, damn, you better
go to warr and die. Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the hella here I come all these but I
just think, I know it's a long section because it's
a complicated topic, but I think it's really really vital
to understand that, and you know, we can let that
rest there and take a break.
Speaker 1: Here, all right. So now we've been touching upon it.
But a big theme of this movie, I think, especially
in the second half, is the collective.
Speaker 5: Trauma, the communal trauma of all.
Speaker 1: These people that are get like leftovers of this war
time experience and then they're being put into a similar experience,
which is a giant Godzilla has arisen from the ocean.
Speaker 2: And we got to go fight him.
Speaker 1: And also a big part of it, like we mentioned earlier,
is there's a big shift and also national identity.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that's happening in this film
is that there's a couple things colliding. Which is what
makes it such a brilliant film is the collision of
impossible factors. Japan is on the losing side of this war.
They have thoroughly lost, but their entire warrior warrior ethos
is formed from the Bashido code and looking at how
important it is in their national identity to not surrender,
to fight to the last breath, to the last person,
to defend their home. They lost, and now not only
did they lost, but they're being disarmed and forced to
be dependent upon the country that defeated them, who is
not going to protect them or give them weapons to
protect themselves at the same rate at which they would
do so normally. Japan is not able to self defend.
They're being disarmed. They're granted the ability to recommission one
ship one ship to fight against Godzilla. They're disarmed and
being attacked. They are less capable and under attack again.
So the collision of those factors is a huge component
of this cultural identity and the collective trauma because all
of Japan is under that condition. They are actively being
attacked by a monster that's destroying their cities, but they
don't have weapons and tools with which to deal with it,
and the only ones that they are able to use
are ones that they're told they can use. That's a
pretty stark contrast from their national identity. Can you imagine
if that happened here? Americans like I have all these
guns and all these things, and.
Speaker 1: Well, our culture won't to shut the fuck up about
it even when it's not a threat. So yeah, we
would implode nationally if that happened.
Speaker 2: They're not different, right, and we're watching that they've lost.
Their ability to fight is not quite what they thought
it was under the circumstances that existed, and now we
don't have the means to even try because we're stuck.
But we have to do it anyway because we still
can't just let ourselves be consumed by a monster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so as we take it out from just Koweichi,
and we kind of pull it out too, because one
thing we didn't bring up is he starts working on
a pretty much like a fishing boat. That's job it
is to deactivate minds. Correct, Okay, just making sure I
got that right. So it's built up of Doc, Captain,
and Kid, and this Godzilla thing happens. Like I really
like the scenes towards the last half of the movie,
maybe even like the last third, where they are trying
to convince now civilians to participate in this situation and
nobody wants to volunteer, and I remember just thinking, like,
of course they don't want to volunteer, like they're still
fresh from this war that was deeply tragic, and they're
also still in this very vulnerable position where it is
likely that they won't make it if they have to
attack this guy, and then you're asking them to volunteer,
Like it doesn't shock me that everyone just kind of
like shuts down. And I think that was a very
real representation of like, these people have been through it,
they're still going through it, and now you're asking them
to put themselves in this position that also you could
if I want to take this farther where they were
told like if you put your life on the line,
which Stock says in that speech he gives. We were
sold culturalist idea that if we put ourselves on the line,
that that'll work out, and that's like morally good and
I know I'm asking you to do that again when
we've been in shambles as a country for years now,
and it is a hard It's a hard motherfucking cell.
Speaker 2: It is. It's a very hard cell. And they've been
slowly recovering some aspects of their identity and ingenuity and
technical prowess by going out and kind of clearing these
minds and things. But even amongst all of that humanity, uh,
that carrier or that the the naval ship that they
got back, what happened to it? Part of why the
first specie makes they people.
Speaker 1: Are like, yeah, nah, this one Godzilla turns blue and
his spine cookuk kunk khunh.
Speaker 5: Any, Like you know big Babilaborgs.
Speaker 2: Yes, that would that would be yes, big bad Beetleborgs exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, that's also a huge component of this
is like you want us to go up against this
creature that not only we've never encountered before, but also
seems to have acquired mutant skills.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it did, and so it's like bigger,
just be kidding me.
Speaker 1: It gets bigger well because it seems to absorb, right, yeah,
the weaponry nightmare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it demolished the ship. They use the breath weapon
against it and just yeah, annihilated and they.
Speaker 1: Saw it well, and then they that thing happens where
they don't they don't warn people about Godzilla because they
want to contain the situation, and then what happens. Godzilla
attacks of big city and it goes to hell, you know,
and this is a country that has had huge city
destroying situations happen.
Speaker 2: And as we previously discussed, tying it together, right, yes, yes,
and yes, but also what kind of propaganda were they
getting that we're going to win m M and the
government has proved itself not trustworthy and what does it
do again? Lies?
Speaker 1: Yeah, lies, and then people I was shocked. This is
more final thoughts. But when Nrico died, I was like, no.
When I thought she died, I was like, don't do
this to this man and this baby I know. And
then she died for him pretty much when he thought
she died, yeah, like that's not going to help.
Speaker 4: I think that's what gave him the push to be
the pilot for the project. Yep, he's like, she's gone,
I have you know, I have this little girl that
I mean, I don't even know he was thinking of
the little girl at that point, not because he was
a jerk or something, but just because I don't he
was so he was in so much pain. Well, he
gave her to the neighbor, yes, and gave a bunch
of the way he left that baby though, He just
left her in the house by herself with a buile
of money.
Speaker 2: And god thinks she wandered out. You got her. But
if he could have planned that better, yeah, correct, But
he thought she was better off without him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh for sure. I mean that's a part of
feeling horrible about yourself.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 5: So you think everybody's better off without you.
Speaker 2: Correct. But looking at like that collective side of it
again is that they're you know, they're so demoralization is
the right word, right, they're demoralized because they're being demilitarized
because they're defeated and now they're being attacked again and
their weapons that they do have, which are less aren't working.
Their tanks just get thrown their big naval ship such
a you know, aquatic movie with so many naval themes
because Japan was a naval power ties into their you know, identity, right,
they're not island nation, So navy's pretty big deal didn't work. Fucked,
totally fucked. How do you and then recognize how do
we reactivate and find within ourselves all of these parts
for defense, for winning, for self survival, for sustainability when
we're defeated.
Speaker 1: Well, also, and this might be where you're leading to,
is that this Godzilla does offer an opportunity for a
lot of these men to have what we've talked about before,
which is a corrective experience. Someone did say so wrote
it down. It's a chance to do good again, you know.
Like this is also an opportunity for our main character,
Kichi Kiwiki Kichi Kouichi to have his ultimate corrective experience,
which is now I can finally do the thing and
complete my story that he's been in, Like we've talked
about this like disassociated frozen state for years now, and
so now he can finally, you know, finish his programming.
Speaker 5: He's been stuck on this weird loop for so long, and.
Speaker 1: So that's why it is really important for him to
like fuling himself into the mouth of Godzilla.
Speaker 2: Correct, and it gives him the ability to complete the mission.
That is a critical component of under standing how we
get people past these things is you must allow that
part that they formed to respond to the critical situation
to do something close enough to what it was supposed
to do, or otherwise it's stays stuck. Mother's Against Drunk
Driving formed because people lost kids to drunk drivers and
they could not parent and protect their children anymore. But
what they could do to protect children was to create
this foundation, to create political action, to fundraise and they
did things and continue to do things to make meaning
of the losses and give that protective mothering parental instincts
something to do, even if it can't do it for
their child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's finding a purpose. He's been wandering around purposeless.
Speaker 2: But it's not just him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it means everybody.
Speaker 2: It's like looking at some of the characters, right, the
kid couldn't go to war. He was old enough to
go to war, and he still has the glamorous idea
of what war is supposed to be. He has the
basic training message of you know, like rah rah, go
get him. You can survive, you can protect Japan and people, everybody,
everybody who went to war is like, shut up with that.
War is not what you think, son.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like the captain and him get into it because
he's so adamant, even with a broken arm, that like
he needs to be a part of it. And the
captain says, not being part of a war is something
to be grateful for.
Speaker 5: But that's the kind of insight.
Speaker 1: This is what's so annoying is it's the kind of
insight that you can only really have once you've gone
through the thing correct And so I'm in my brain,
I'm like, I wish the kid could understand it, but
he's not going to never until something unless something similar
happens to him. Yeah, which you don't want to happen
to him, which is the catch twenty two of the situation.
Speaker 2: And yet it does. But once it does, he gains
the knowledge and also completes the function that he did
something in defense.
Speaker 5: Of Japan, yeah, by bringing all the boats.
Speaker 2: Correct. But he would have stayed stuck in his shame
and his guilt that he did nothing that he was
unable to and would have held that against himself forever
had he not had the corrective experience of doing that,
because that's the same thing and Doc, Doc was military intelligence.
You don't find that out until he reveals himself towards
the end. But he was there to help plan and
design all of these things, and he knew the secrets,
and his guilt was that he couldn't do anything with
series because he couldn't tell, because he's scorned a state secrecy.
And now he can. Now he can be open, and
now he can solve it. And it is through that
messaging that his second speech wins people over and they
rise to the occasion and the people stand up. It
took the admiral telling his story, telling his truth right.
It wasn't just Doc. It took the person in the
highest position of power to stand up and tell the
most real story to get people out of the collective
trauma and back into collective action. And how many stood
up that had skills that were willing to go back
into the breach that were not before until he stood up.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting that even while hitting upon those things,
he also simultaneously, very heavily critiques the idea of like Kamakazi,
the idea that the citizenry is being treated like expendables,
and I think it's such an interesting like almost like
Jux's position in that speech, right of him being able
to say, like, I do see the importance of you
all as individuals, and I am respecting the gravity of
what I'm asking for. That it's not just like what
before where it was like you don't matter, the cause matters.
Like he was recognizing that you matter and the cause matters.
And I know that I'm asking you to do something
really hard and I'm not going to go the route
we have gone in this culture, which is that you
don't matter. I wonder how much that is like current
day ideas being put into the movie, Like it makes
me wonder recently after World War Two, what the thoughts
store about like that philosophy. Obviously I don't know anything
about that, because you know, I'm not. Yeah, well, I
assume it would have to because.
Speaker 2: The emperor wanted to keep fighting. Well, thats why the
second bomb was dropped, because the emperor one would not surrender,
wanted to keep fighting.
Speaker 1: So it's this idea of like, we got royally fucked
over culturally, and you asked us for this big, big
sacrifice and it gave us less than nothing.
Speaker 2: And you were gambling with our lives for your ego. Yeah,
that became quite the sentiment of recognition, like the Emperor
was threatened with overthrow.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, so then it makes more cultural sense, whil like,
because Doc's speech contains so much humility, humility and recognition
of the worthwhileness.
Speaker 5: Of all the men in front of him.
Speaker 2: That was the admiral.
Speaker 1: I thought it was the Doc that gave the speech
about like criticizing it.
Speaker 2: That's what I wrote my notes. So they both did.
But then is the admiral that stood up and did
more of that coming from? Which is the juxtaposition?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: The person who would have been ordering men to their
death and holding them accountable with death is one of
the ones coming back from it. It's Doc and him
because Doc says one thing and then the Admiral echoes it, okay,
which is super super critical to recognize that the person
who would have not the person planning the attacks, that
the person ordering them is also echoing the message. Without that,
they would not have stood up.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we'll take a break here and be
back with treatments. Why don't you go first, Hannah?
Speaker 4: Something that I want to point out for so I
would be doing couple's therapy. One thing that I want
to point out about Noriko is that she has her
moral experience is a little bit different. But she did
promise something to her parents. She promised them that she
would survive, and I think a part of what we
see in the film is her trying to survive in
any way that she can. I think that's why she
goes to get a job. She's trying to find her
purpose and trying to find her meaning. And then we
see the experience of her being a little bit more
independent and him automatically feeling defensive and feeling like, am
I not providing enough for you? Am I not getting
you what you need? And she's like, it doesn't have anything.
Speaker 5: To do with that.
Speaker 4: It has to do with I said I was going
to survive. I have to survive myself. The reason why
I brought that up is because that is definitely going
to come into couple's therapy. That is definitely going to
be something we're going to talk about. Another reason why
I want to talk about working with them is because
when you're in grad school, you get told that if
you have a couple, or if you have people who
are not of your cultural background, whatever that might be,
that you should, you know, make sure that you don't
ask any questions.
Speaker 5: You have to get all your own information.
Speaker 4: You're told all of these different things that you have
to do with a couple. A lot of times you're
even told to refer out automatically because you're not don't
have the cultural background. And in the real world.
Speaker 2: You get the couples that you get, Yeah, like.
Speaker 1: Little accessible referrals that exactly everybody's needs exactly.
Speaker 2: It just it would be awesome if it was like that.
Speaker 5: It's just not fucking like that.
Speaker 4: Part of the reason why I want to talk about
this is because a lot of times you're just taught
to refer out. And what I want to share is
that when you have a couple that has a different
background from you and a different experience, but at least
their experience is the same, you are allowed to ask
some questions for clarification. You're allowed to ask if there's
cultural aspects that you need to be aware of and
you don't. And I'm not saying that they should have
to take up the whole session to explain it to me.
I'm just saying that we're allowed to ask some questions
about how their cultural experience is just different because it is,
and that something that a responsible clinician could do is
you know, if you know that you have a couple
who is of a different cultural background than you, you
can look it up on the internet, you can read
articles about it.
Speaker 2: You can consult with somebody.
Speaker 4: Maybe you have somebody who has, in this instance, you know,
a Japanese background. Maybe I can find a colleague that
I can talk to about it. So it is a
little bit of both. You have to do a little
bit of both. So that's part of why I wanted
to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: When it comes to doing the actual work with Nurico
and Kuichi, what.
Speaker 5: Will be really important.
Speaker 4: Is that they are both on their own trauma journeys
in a very specific way, and the triggers that they
might both have is something that has to be talked
about because a lot of times PTSD symptoms can come
out more relationally and have a really big impact on
that part of your life.
Speaker 2: So if we're talking about.
Speaker 5: Each other, sorry to cut in, but yeah, like acting
out on each other.
Speaker 4: Exactly exactly, And so what would really be important when
working with two people who are traumatized in a similar way,
even if they both reacted in different ways. That helping
them both understand that they have their own things that
they may have to work on before we can come
into couples, but also understanding for both of them that
these are the things that make me upset, These are
the things that make me upset, trying to figure out
a way of how can we keep the both of
you being activated or triggered as you know, as low
as possible, because that will be really important when it
comes to any kind of fighting or arguments or whatever
the case might be. So so that's what I would
do with the couple. I would really want to help
them also have connection to each other and then in
some ways some of this is just pure communication. So
those are the things I would want to help them with.
And yeah, that's all I got.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there'd be a couple that you'd want to do
like the vulnerability cycle stuff with like what are our
individual wounds and how are we gonna indirectly directly push
those wounds every once in a while and recognize like, ooh,
that's a me thing. Yeah, and you just stepped on it,
maybe accidentally, and just because you stepped on it, for
whatever reason. Doesn't mean that I have to treat you
like you stomped on it on purpose to fuck with me, right,
which is what people do, And then they'll do their
own thing and reaction to that, and then that's why
it's called a cycle.
Speaker 2: And becomes really critical is in those conversations is teaching
about the biology that a person who perceives the threat
is going to react to it, and it is going
to take you not doing so and committing to not
doing so or doing so less often, because you're not
always going to be able to not react. If your
partner starts reacting, you're not going to be able to
contain your shit because you're perceiving your partner as a
threat at that moment. But there is a classic thing
in couples counseling that we were taught in grad school.
You need to get both people to agree unconditionally to change,
at least largely so because if they agree, I will
make a change. If they do, it will not be successful.
Right if they say or I will not change, but
I want them to change, not going to be successful
if they say I am going to change regardless of
what they do to make things better, change will happen,
but you need both people to agree to the same thing.
Speaker 4: And there's so much psycho education that you do as
a couple's therapist.
Speaker 2: Half of the work I do is psycho education.
Speaker 4: And you know, and all of you have heard me
speak of this many, many times, because we don't have
any mental health education in this.
Speaker 2: Country, none garbage, So.
Speaker 4: People don't know a fucking thing. And sometimes when I
really explain the neurobiological experiences that people have when they're triggered,
you can just see the light in the partner's eyes
of like, holy fuck, I did not think this is
where this was going, or that this has nothing to
do with me, correct, which a lot of the time,
especially when it's past trauma, a lot of the time,
it's got nothing to do with the partner. It's just
because you're interacting the most with each other and you're
around each other the most, and you also feel and
sometimes when you feel the safest with that person, sometimes
we also can push them away.
Speaker 2: Correct And the degree of betrayal, yes, that you feel
when that person fails you causes a much bigger response
because you're not safe from the past, you're not safe
in the present and you're not safe because the idea
of a future you had where you were safe from
the past no longer exists in this moment. Clients really
have to understand entering into couples, therapies, in experience, in
psycho education, of learning, the regulation of all of that
determines the outcome. This is what a lot of the
critical research on couples did you know what? The thing
that determines whether couples are going to fight is their
fucking blood pressure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that sounds right.
Speaker 2: Their heart rate and their blood pressure. This is what
the Gotment's proved if you track that shit, and they
got some shit that's you know, makes money, but other
stuff that is concrete.
Speaker 4: Science, right absolutely, and that shit is science on mostly
white couples. And one more thing that I want to
just add that I am also assuming about when I
work with this couple, is that what we see at
the end of the film, which is Kuichi has because
he has had this corrective experience and because he found
his purpose and he was able to follow through and
he was able to live and then he found out
that Noriko was alive. That I feel like he will
be and he still will have a lot of work
to do emotionally, but that he will be in a
place where he is now open for connection. And something
that I just learned in an excellent training that Brittany
set up at her practice about couples counseling was that connection.
We talk so much about communication and couples, but it's
actually connection that helps with communication. And they couldn't have
that because Kuichi couldn't allow that to happen, because he
didn't deserve good, beautiful things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't communicate better her to someone who has
not receptive.
Speaker 3: Yet to the communication, exactly exactly. And he did not
feel connected to her until he thought he lost her. Yeah,
and not until she showed up alive.
Speaker 1: Well, this is also another corrective experience for him, yeah, exactly.
He now gets to do all the things that I'm
sure he was regretting not doing.
Speaker 2: And she lost her well, she saved him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean just in the sense of I
never told her I loved her, you know what I mean.
I'm sure he was thinking all those things in that
moment and like another time when he probably thought I
didn't follow through, like I'm such a fucking coward. You know,
there's this woman that loved me, who lived with me
for years, and I never pursued.
Speaker 2: It happened to be beautiful. Yeah, he was a cook.
What's wrong? So I'm going to offshoot on that.
Speaker 1: In that I was thinking I would could do family
therapy there little daughter, Akiko, she does seem pretty chill
for a kid.
Speaker 2: Who's go through a lot of shit.
Speaker 1: But I would just say, like, like offshooting what you're saying, Hannah,
of let's say they're a couple. Now they're a little family,
like an actual little family. I think the work I
can do with parents, even of someone that young is
kind of what you were saying Handah to of like
it's much more psycho educational. Yeah, So let's say if
Akiko started exhibiting maybe some behavioral problems her own trauma stuff,
what I can do as the clinician is work with
the couple to help them understand why the kid Akiko
might be presenting the way that she is, where it's
coming from in terms of trauma. How trauma can affect
attachment because a kid like her is vulnerable to developing
and something like reactive attachment disorder, which is just when
you have a lot of caregivers when you're really little
for whatever reason, when there's an instability in terms of
of your secure attachments, So whether you lose a parent
and you have to go to another parent, whether you're
being which kind of she is a little bit you know,
where you're kind of like being given like passed around
by adults, which sometimes just happens. Is that then you
can just have like behavior issues and stuff like this
when the kids are older. And a lot of times
parents have a difficult time understanding that because especially when
it's a situation like once I've been in where kind
of similar to a kiko actually like fostered or adopted kids,
where the parents will be like.
Speaker 2: This doesn't make sense. I'm giving them everything that they need.
Speaker 1: They have food, and they have shelter, and I love
them and I show them that I love them. Why
aren't they well, why aren't they reacting appropriately to the
resources that I'm giving them? And then I have to
do a lot of explaining of this kid developed during
a period of time in which that stuff was not
set in stone, so that security that doesn't exist in
that child even if you start taking care of them
at a pretty young age. A lot of times with
this they'll say like pre too, Like if there's enough
shit that happens in the first like eighteen months to
two years of a kid's life, like that's enough, unfortunately
to really affect this stuff for potentially for the rest
of their life. And so with this is it's I
think with them, I'd also want to do a lot
of work on making sure that their sense of identity,
their stability, their ego is not too attached to how
a Kego response to them, which I think could be
a big thing for either of them. I think with
Noriko obviously, because as we said, she's made it her
life's purpose in a lot of ways to take care
of this girl and to live a good life and
to give this girl a good life. So it would
be something where like you have to let the kid
have whatever opinion of you they want to have treat you.
Maybe they don't treat you like their mom. Maybe they
do kind of act ungrateful and you know, antagonistic and whatever,
and you can't make that you as the parent, can't
make that about you. I need you to love me,
I need you to think of me like your mom.
I need you to have a very specific kind of
relationship to me. I think, especially like I said, with
both of these parents in this movie, where they've gone
through so much, and I could see both of them
having their identity really wrapped up in a Kiko and
how she responds to them. So with these parents, I'd
also have to make sure to say, like, you have
to figure out how to feel grounded and good no
matter how this kid behaves, and this kid can't feel
like your well being is an attitude and all this
stuff is contingent upon how they behave, because that'll make
them more anxious about the attachment stuff and more likely
to do antagonistic things to push you away, because that's
more comfortable than the pressure of like, I have to
be a certain way for you to feel good and
for me to feel good.
Speaker 5: And so that'd be the work I'd want to do
with them.
Speaker 1: If, for like I said, hypothetically, maybe a Kiko did
have some problems as she got older.
Speaker 2: Hopefully she won't. She's pretty young. I suspect she may
do okay.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean, Like, there's a very good chance
she'll do okay. But I also think with just how
much she like she loses this mom figures sometime she
goes to this neighbor, you know, there's all this chaos
just within the country at the time. Like I think
that she's vulnerable to happening. Do I think she's super
likely for it to happen. Not necessarily, but I think
like it's just important to talk about, Like if I
work with them to a family, like this could be
a hypothetical situation that would come up that is similar
to ones I've been in where just because you've taken
this kid in, whether it's from the foster system or whatever,
or like from a family member, just because you've taken
this kid in and you've worked really hard to support
them does not mean that you're going to get something
from this kid in return. It does not so, and
if that's something you're caught up in, you got to
get the book over it.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't mean that just because you've given them
regulation that the impacts of the dysregulation they went through
will be erased. Yeah, because they will not.
Speaker 1: And I've worked with kids that have been adopted as infants,
and I've worked with kids that have been adopted as
very young toddlers that still present with these things. And
so you can't there's no guarantee. Well, I could say here,
all adoption is trauma by the nature of being adoption,
and all fostering is trauma by the nature of being fostering.
A kid gets ripped from their biological caregiver for some reason,
for some reason and play somewhere else. So there's always
the potential that this could lead to these attachmentations I'm
talking about no matter what age or circumstance that you
quote unquote like acquired this child. And I think that's
something I just like to say every once in a
while because there is so much, in my opinion, disgusting
rhetoric out there that if you like get a baby
young enough or in the right conditions, that you can
like love that kid well, or that like that baby
won't have any problems, like I think a lot of
people like, and it's still gross. This is like the
human trafficking part of in my opinion, part of adoption
is like, if I acquire a baby young enough, then
I'm going to avoid all of the potential hardships of
like adopting a kid that's like older. That's not necessarily true.
This stuff happens very young, and like I said, it
can be very random. There are some kids, like when
we talked about Matilda, there are some kids that go
through she like this and they are fine, quote unquote.
And there are some kids that don't have like too
much on paper that happens to them, and they have
a lot of stuff that they have to work through.
So in a lot of ways, it's like a true
like clusterfuck of genetics, nature, nurture, luck, all that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 2: You can't escape. Must of those. Yeah, So when I
watched this movie, I even though the plot really concludes it,
I think there's more work that would need to be done,
and that outside of the relationships you all identified, Koichi
and Tuck Schibana is something that I think really needs
some therapeutic intervention because those two went through such a
critical experience and the bad feelings that exist between them,
and for all valid reasons, but I think those two
would probably benefit from being in a group therapy, more
like family therapy kind of connection where the two of
them who are involved in the same event would need
to sit down and kind of process through what each
of them saw and how their viewpoint on it has
changed over time. I thought, among the most beautiful things
about this film. Was it being Tachibana who forgave.
Speaker 1: Him and puts the ejection seat in as well correct
a really symbolic I forgive you and I want you
to live.
Speaker 2: Correct. But he couldn't get there, He could not get
himself there for years. His anger and hatred and for
all of the cultural reasons we identified or earlier, would
have kept him blocked from processing because he also wouldn't
be able to explain what he went through. And the
betrayal by a superior is enormous. The cultural significance that
Kuichi held over him, And it was him discovering and
not writing him out and not holding him accountable and
radioing in that they had this trader basically in calling
someone to come get his ass. But he let him live,
and then he betrayed. He got betrayed again, and he
got mangled, and all his friends died, while his men
died because he was the NCO, the noncommissioned officer, the
leader of those men, his men, his plan all got
killed because he trusted this officer. That's gone to require
some work. And I think those two getting the opportunity
to come in and sit down and talk and process
that would be the most helpful thing because in reality,
they may not have gotten the moment where he would
have the ability to apply his skill to show forgiveness
by building an ejection seat into an airplane that wouldn't
have had one. But had Kuichi not shown the humility
and the respect and the recognition of how badly he failed,
he may not have done that. But he really took
to heart the speech and he showed thee and he
took the opportunity to say, I am not going to
perpetuate this hurt and these bad feelings, and through sitting
through a great number of debriefings, where in my case
it's police officers who all have a different perspective of
the event that they went through, have the opportunity to
process through each other what each other saw, what each
person saw, what each person went through, what they thought then,
what they think now, what's changed to them as they've
learned more. Because sometimes somebody acts or doesn't act and
holds it against themselves in a profound way, or somebody
else holds it against them because they didn't understand. But
having the opportunity to process that with the other people
that went through the event is a unique opportunity that
cannot exist in any other format, and these two men
share this first exposure to Godzilla in a way that
no one else does. So for me, those two sitting
together in a room and talking about it from that
perspective would be a vital component of healing that if
we could make happen, would be my first and foremost target.
And those are the reasons why.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense.
And it really makes me think of the VA and
how poorly supported they are and are currently experiencing a
lot of problems in terms of being able to help
vets unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Correct, and especially when you get people that were in
the same conflict, especially even the same unit. Yeah, I
would have had the same experience, so critical. Yeah, that
they get the opportunity to talk to each other in
a place where they feel safe, that's for them, and
these two would need that. Yeah, they would need something
like a VA where it's you know, I could military
people talking them about military things, so that there's the
common cultural understanding. Because though it's clear other Japanese folks
understand the gravity of how bad he messed up, Tachibana
is the symbolism of that, but that's a reality. People fail,
and the failure that you have personally and positionally matters.
Societal failure impacts the degree of wound, and people like
Tachibana below you have less power but still chose to
use grace and not follow orders himself. Like huge, huge opportunity,
And yeah, that's if we decimate the VA, we're not
going to have those opportunities to heal what can be
healed of those things.
Speaker 1: Let's take our last break here and be back with
final thoughts. Why don't you have first, Ben, because you're
the only one I think that's already seen the movie
before recording.
Speaker 2: This correct, This is one of my picks. Even though
we got lots of requests for it. I've gotten a
lot of requests since the minute it came out. One
of my longtime folks demand did of me, demanded to
He told me you're gonna see it, and you're gonna
do it, and it's just gonna be it. And he
was correct. So I will you know acknowledge that that
he was very right, and I'm glad he was because
this is my favorite movie the past couple of years.
Speaker 5: Really, you do love war movies?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but why I love this No, but loving
this one has nothing to do with it being a
war movie. This is This is one of the best
written films I think I've seen in quite a while.
I think between this and Everything Everywhere, all at once,
those are my top favorites lately. The tightness of the writing,
the incredible acting, and the way the story all interconnects,
all makes sense, and it connects on all the levels
of humanity. I just think is really unique and not
often done. And we've seen a lot of bullshit that
tries to do this but just meh as the result,
and this wasn't. This was a truly beautiful gem of
a film where we see the offense, we see the
breaking of humanity, We see this situational destruction of identity,
and we see the collective restoration as well as the individual,
and we see it across so many different stories and
the opportunities to grow and heal, and it culturally reclaim
Godzilla from the monster of destruction. It came to what
it was originally created as, which is a symbol of
nuclear destruction and the danger it represents to humanity and
how we must all band together to defeat it. And
this movie comes right back to that, while also tying
it a little more directly to the Sleeping Giant comments
of recognizing that some of this nuclear destruction was brought
on by our own hubris of attacking another country we
didn't need to attack necessarily and getting into a war
caused this kind of damage to our country and now
we need to heal from it. It's a beautiful, beautiful film,
and I am very glad that exists. And do we
did it and go next?
Speaker 5: I really liked the movie. I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was thought I would like it because it's gotten
so much positive accolades. And I've never seen a Godzilla
movie except for maybe the one from the nineties, just
because like it's just not my forte Godzilla is just
not really a genre of movie that I watch. So
I would say it was like really pleasantly surprised by
how beautiful this movie was. I thought it was just
gorgeous to look at, and to be honest, like then,
this is probably gonna be sacriligious for me to say it.
Speaker 5: I could have done without the Godzilla part.
Speaker 1: I think the Godzilla part I get white it is
and it's such like a cultural touchdown, so don't go crazy.
Speaker 5: I'm even no.
Speaker 2: I didn't need Gozilla for it to be a beautiful movie.
That's what made it work. Yeah, I hate it.
Speaker 1: I like just that it was a story that I
think we get a lot of stories of, like Germany
post World War Two and how they societally reckoned with that.
So it was interesting to see the Japanese part of
that story, which I'd never really seen before in this way.
Speaker 2: So I thought the movie was beautiful.
Speaker 1: It was really interesting to also just watch I don't
watch a lot of Japanese cinema, so it's really interesting
to see like the differences in like acting style and
how they just go about doing stuff. So it's a
beautiful movie. I didn't cry cry, but I definitely choked
up a few times. And it really realized how much
I've heard the Godzilla score be sampled in hip hop music,
because I was like, I know these sounds that I'm
hearing every time Godzilla rises from the ocean.
Speaker 2: So I would say, I really like this movie.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll seek it out again, just
because I'm not a big Godzilla person, but I thought
it was very, very beautiful, and I like the messaging
that I was giving out.
Speaker 4: I thought that this movie was fine, that's a new one.
I I enjoyed it as like the action parts in
the beautiful cinematography and the connections between the people that
were working together. Like I thought that everybody did a
really good job acting wise, and I thought it was.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I'll rewatch it, not for any
specific reason. I will not say that I will never
watch it again, because I think there is a chance
that I will watch it again, especially after having this
discussion that we had today. But I think that it's
I think that it's good. I'm glad that people found
the connection that they had to it. I think it's
a beautiful way to tell that story.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we will wrap up here as always.
If you would like to find it, you can find
us on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook a pop Porn Psychology.
You can also email us at pop porronpsychologygmail dot com.
If you want to support us anyway, we have a Patreon.
You can be a Patreon and get early unedited access
to our episodes, and if you want to support us
for free.
Speaker 5: You can give us a review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you listen to podcasts, It is a great way
to support us and allows other people to find us
who haven't. So yeah, everybody, keep safe out there and
avoid Godzilla.