Speaker 1: Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Brittany Brownfield and
I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by Ben Stover,
individual therapist, Hannah Espinozo marriage and family therapists. We're all
licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists, who practice
out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed mental health professionals,
this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes and to fulfill
our love of dissecting pop culture and all forms.
Speaker 2: Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
we aren't your therapist.
Speaker 1: If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
a local mental health provider. Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone.
For our last episode of twenty twenty five, we were
talking about a Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens classic. Specifically, though
we will be discussing map It's Christmas Carol, which in
my opinion, is the best adaptation of a Christmas Carol.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you two think of. What are
your two? Well?
Speaker 1: Do you guys have different opinions about what's the best
adaptation of a Christmas Carol.
Speaker 3: We'll get that out of the way.
Speaker 2: Best her favorite's a different discussion. Favorite Muppets exactly best.
I think George C. Scott did it best. But okay,
fair best and favorite. This is classic and it's gold.
Speaker 1: This is the only version that I really love and
I've never watched another version and I never will.
Speaker 3: We watched Scrooge yesterday. Yeah, but that's.
Speaker 1: Different because it's Bill Murray.
Speaker 3: That feels different. It's more of a retelling. Yeah, okay,
I'll give you that.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I think most people know the plot of
a Christmas Carol, but if you don't, it's about a
miserly old man named Ebenezer Scrooge who has no friends,
who is a I don't know, busy this man, what
will we call him?
Speaker 2: He's a lender?
Speaker 3: A lender?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Yeah, he's like a loan shark type and
he's taken a lot of money from people. He doesn't
give a shit about anybody, He overworks his employees, doesn't
care about Christmas, and he gets visited by three ghosts
on Christmas Night to teach him that basically money isn't
everything and he needs to turn his shit around. If
he doesn't want to go to hell like his ex
partner and friend Jacob Marley.
Speaker 2: So in this episode we're going to be covering emotional neglect,
attachment wounds, and values before we get into treatment and
final thoughts.
Speaker 1: Just like always so, Ebeneezer is a classic character, even
being called like a scrooge or saying bahumbug, and he
is sort of a parody of a guy that is
a miser. I mean that's like the classic word right
for him is someone who is just not just rich,
but super tight with their money.
Speaker 3: He won't turn the heat on in.
Speaker 1: His place, but he also went in the lights on
or used something like he was doing stuff in the dark.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he doesn't care about it.
Speaker 2: He lives at Marley's place. Oh yeah, he doesn't even
have his own house anymore. He lives in his dead
partner's house so he doesn't have to pay for it.
Speaker 3: Well, damn, that's worse than I thought.
Speaker 2: And still won't use heat or really barely uses his
chamber stick.
Speaker 3: Oh God, would Kurda define that for the class?
Speaker 2: A chamber stick a candle with a little brass ring
as a holder.
Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you were referring to something associated with
a chamber pot. No, like something you use maybe like
a stick to break up your poop.
Speaker 2: No, a chamberstick is a candle holder, you know, because
they used candles to keep fighting. Familiar candlestick or candle
chamber stick collection.
Speaker 3: Oh fancy.
Speaker 2: So it's been forefront of my mind. Also watching The
Frozen a lot, and they use them in there too.
Speaker 3: Okay, gotcha, gotcha didn't realize.
Speaker 2: Which is more or less set in the same time period,
so makes sense.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So he is a man who pinches pennies to the max,
like he even though he has a ton of money,
he is choosing to live as if he almost has none,
and he treats money as like a very scarce commodity.
He had no generosity in his spirit, like he wants
his Bob Cratchett, his like secondhand man to work on Christmas.
He doesn't want to give money to the orphans, the
people collecting money for orphans. He just doesn't seem to
care about anyone else and seems to value money over everything.
And that's the guy we meet at the beginning of
the story. When I think about Ebenezer, also think about
him as just like hoarding, like he's just hoarding all
of his money and hoarding all of his resources and
just keeping them really tight to him. He won't he
won't spend money in anything or anyone because he just
has to have all of it to.
Speaker 2: Himself, and he won't even enjoy it.
Speaker 3: No, he doesn't enjoy it. He seems.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like miser literally means a miserable fuck.
Speaker 3: Like he's a miserable fuck. Yeah, he's miserable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty much exactly means. And it's very clear
that Ebenezer is the now classic definition of this miserable
old person who humbug humbug doesn't like anyone or anything.
But really that gruph exterior is just something he's locked
into to keep other people locked out and to keep
himself locked in. It does not reflect who he truly is,
and it shows pretty quick into the story that he's
not actually got such a frozen heart as he likes
to portray.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he's definitely some one that is acting as
if this is also the life that they want. And
what I mean by that is he does have this
very gregarious, kind seeming nephew who wants to involve him,
wants to kind of get him out, Like you can
see moments where, even like with Bob Kraujet, like moments
where it seems like the community would take him in,
like would open themselves up to him, but he has
gotten so deep into what you're bringing up in like
this protective persona that he is constantly rejecting and pushing away, and.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, well and also something.
Speaker 1: People do do which is over identifying with what keeps them,
what they think keeps them safe, like I like being
by myself. I don't even care about Christmas. Overdoing it
with this part of their personality.
Speaker 2: It's a part. I mean, I think people are more
or less to understand. Yeah, what a part is, We've
described it pretty well. I mean I think this isn't
a component of his personality. He's developed as a defense
to keep himself as painfree as possible.
Speaker 1: And we see right away because obviously because we watch
the Muppets movie. Though I'm sure we'll reference other parts
of the story from other adaptations because it's such a big, well,
it's such a ubiquitous story that everybody seems to know,
similar to when we talk about the Grinch.
Speaker 2: And conveniently, because of Hollywood, money. It's in the public
domain now. Oh, so they don't have to pay royalty fees.
Speaker 3: So I could make my own version of Christmas Carol.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure you could.
Speaker 3: Wow. I mean I won't, but it's nice to know.
But I could.
Speaker 1: But we see right away in this version of the
story when the ghosts of Christmas Past comes, which spooks me,
the gross of Christmas past scary in this version of
the story.
Speaker 2: Oh, that puppet is creepy, ooky, spooky.
Speaker 1: I don't like it. Definitely haunted me as a child,
very uncomfortable. Wow, really, because I feel like the first
ghost is like, well, whatever ghost because of the little
kid head.
Speaker 3: No, it's like it doesn't exist in the real world.
I mean, which I guess is the point.
Speaker 2: It looks very ethereal.
Speaker 3: Creeps Oh, I see.
Speaker 2: Okay, because it looks ethereal, or because the way the
face moves. Because the way the face moves is creepy.
This puppet is a little I really both.
Speaker 1: This is definitely a feeling that comes from my childhood,
when I was probably watching it and being like what,
I don't like it, Like, I couldn't contextualize it. It
just gave me the weirds and so I still have
that feeling when I see it. But this ghost to
show Ebenezer right away. Like the first image we get
of him as a kid is being at boarding school,
I assume, and he's there at Christmas time. It seems
like most of the other kids, if not all the
other kids have gone home for holiday break, and he's
sitting by himself in the classroom doing work, doing school work.
Speaker 2: And that's the first time we see a part appear
in this movie. Because Scrooge is still accessing that memory
and locking into like, well, it's quieter and it gives
you the opportunity to do more work. He will not
admit to himself still that that Mettmory pained him, but
the veil cracks not long after that, and he's like,
please don't show him anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, when he said, it's the best, it's a
good opportunity to get work done because he's by himself,
And I was like, yikes, you can very much hear
how that's a story he started telling himself around that
time to deal with the situation, because you're right, like
this the sad circumstance, which is that's horrible.
Speaker 3: I mean, when we talk about.
Speaker 1: An idea of emotional neglect, like leaving your kid at
the school over the holidays, choosing to do that.
Speaker 3: We don't know why.
Speaker 1: I mean, this movie, this version doesn't give us a
lot of details about his backstory.
Speaker 2: This version sure doesn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we're to assume that he, Yeah, he was
just like a really lonely kid who had to spend
time by himself. And instead of acknowledging the truth of that,
he's trying to, yeah, make it into something else.
Speaker 2: Well, I was using it to retell his story and
use that as the reason why he was successful. All
these other people went home, and I learned how to focus,
and I learned how to ignore frivolous human interactions and
connections and just focus on money and facts and learning,
which very clearly becomes untrue. And we see is untrue,
because he lights right up when we start seeing other
parts of his story. But I won't skip ahead just yet.
Speaker 1: No, And I think you're naming there is something we
see now, like in real life when people talk about
their stories, Like when I hear successful people talk about
their childhoods and stuff, and I can hear what we're
talking about, like them doing that too. Which is, yeah,
it was really good for me that my parents did
this to me or that to me, because it taught
me to be ruthless or to really work hard. The
way that we try to make meaning out of bad
stuff that happens to us, which isn't on its face
the worst thing to do, obviously, like there is something
there to putting meaning into.
Speaker 3: Hardships we've gone through.
Speaker 1: But the way that we're talking about it is where
you go too far in the other direction and you
over do it and you get really attached you and
you almost like moralize the circumstance you were in, like
it was good for me, and so it was good
that I went through that because it allows it to
make it into something virtuous versus just something painful.
Speaker 2: Which is exactly what parts do. We'll start creating a
version of the story that separates the version we allow
to exist, or the version that needs to exist, from
the guey soft core underneath that represents all of us
where we can get hurt and do and in his
case did get hurt, get very got very hurt, and
you know, they make the point of showing us it's
weird by having the other kids present in that story
asking him you're not going home. He never goes home.
Speaker 3: He always stays.
Speaker 2: And I think one of them more or less is like, yeah,
he's getting left. And other versions of the story go
through the interactions between him and his sister who also
goes to I believe goes to the school, or the
sister talks his father into letting him come home for Christmas,
not this one and not several of them, but eventually
she talks the dad into letting him come home, and
he's very very attached to her, but not to his
parents and his sisters. The mother of said nephew you
mentioned earlier, which is why that nephew is still connected
to him.
Speaker 1: Also maybe why that nephew is such a happy person.
If his mom had a different experience growing up than
Ebenezer dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his sister would have gotten love and connection and
seen as valuable, which would kind of build into the
attachment wounds. If we don't have anything else to say,
I'm emotional neglect at this moment.
Speaker 1: I think the only thing I want to say about
this part of Ebenezer's experience is that when you have
something that happens to you repeatedly, over and over and
over and over again. That story that you're telling yourself
only gets stronger and only and feels like truth instead
of a part of a story that you were experiencing.
So because this isn't like he got left one Christmas,
he got left every Christmas after he went to boarding school.
And having experiences like that also makes it really hard
for a person to hold hope that things will be
different or that things can be different, because well, look
what happened over the last I don't know, we want
to say maybe decade roughly, probably because he was at
least he was maybe like five or six when he
went in probably and I'm guessing is probably somewhere around
seventeen when he graduates. When he graduates, does that seem accurate?
Speaker 3: Well, I would say I think.
Speaker 2: Totally a bit younger at this point in time.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think in Britain, because I watch a lot
of British shows, I think the age that they get
sent to boarding school Nowish is like eightish.
Speaker 3: But if his family were.
Speaker 1: Just not wanting to deal with him, which it sounds like,
I'm sure, they sent him to boarding school as soon
as you literally could, so I wouldn't be surprised if
he was going to boarding school at five sex, even
though I don't think.
Speaker 2: That's common, and it's clear he's formed this idea, and
you know, the ghost of Christmas Past walks us through
all of these various points in time where we see
the foundation of emotional neglect that he sees the world
through repeat itself. There's moments where you see young Ebenezer
connecting to people and engaging with people, but you also
simultaneously hear him praise the teacher that taught him the
most important lessons he learned, which were to kind of
you know, focus and focus on finance and that to
lean into what you're good at.
Speaker 1: And he also which I've caught for the maybe the
first time ever seen this movie, like I don't know
two thousand times, probably I know all the dialogue, which
I practiced today because I was like, do you really
know of the dialogue? I know all of it. Is
that when the right at the end of the school
scene when Ebenezer is the oldest going to see him
at the school and the teacher tells him don't tip
the driver. So also I think he's also getting shitty information,
like shitty info from these men that he puts on
a pedestal, right, because we also know that Jacob and
what is the other brother's.
Speaker 2: Name in this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's two of them.
Speaker 2: There are two of them, but that's only because they
put the two critics in it.
Speaker 1: There's oh yeah, that's what be surprised of. Their names
are Jacob and Morley Marley.
Speaker 2: No, it's like Jacob and Eric or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, then it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: But also that also shows like when you're taught lessons
by people, and you're only taught lessons by one people,
one person, versus having like a mother and a father
and aunts and uncles and all of that kind of shit,
Like he only has this one teacher and then these
other two men that he idolizes because they're so rich.
Speaker 3: So like he also is.
Speaker 1: Getting a lot of impact from the outside world telling
him that money is the most important thing. I mean, yeah,
if you want to talk about attachment, we attach to
whatever we can as we're growing up. So if he's
being kept at school, then his only relationships with adults
at least are with teachers, and so then the version
of him that's like, well, I want to have value,
I want to please an authority figure of some sort,
instead of it being like through my parents, I'm just
gonna really please my professors and do really well at
school and listen to everything they say. And yet, because
we still have to get like our values and our
social skills and our life lessons. And unfortunately he's getting
them from these adults that are only or these muppets
that are.
Speaker 3: Only he's an eagle, Sam Diego.
Speaker 1: Yes, that are only focusing on one part of his life,
which is the education part, and then for the business part.
And so yeah, he's getting this message almost like religious
in nature from Sam the Eagle of you know, business
is powerful, it's good that you're doing this, and yet
and be a miser, pinch your pennies as much as
you can.
Speaker 3: So those are like the life lessons he's left with.
Speaker 1: Because it feels like even when he meets Fuzzy Wig, right,
which we see in all the versions that I've the
other versions that I've seen all have he's kind of
like a pushover businessman. He's kind of really really really lax,
really chill, and you can tell that Ebenezer feels like
he's kind of silly as compared to the other people
that I think he's held in esteem, which I think
makes sense for him to feel that way based on
the seriousness with which business is talked about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he calls him like, what a what a soft
feather of a man he was or something. In this version,
he always Fezziwig has always shown even though Scrooge has
great fondness of him, and the memories really start to
light up. There's Wiggs and we always had this Christmas party.
You can see he clearly, you know, had such fondness
for this, but yet it was a gentler kinder man. Interesting,
that's who you attach, you because we can't help but
attach and want to please somebody that's a parental figure.
But we will stop trying to get that approval from
people who won't give it. But that doesn't mean we'll
stop trying to get it.
Speaker 1: Well. The inclusion of fazzi Wig or Fezziwig as a
character in a Christmas story is an interesting one in
that his first seems like his first substantial job out
of school is with someone that is so contrary to
the values that he was raised in at school, and
that it doesn't have an impact on him the way
that you would hope it would, you know, and like,
you're right that instead of him seeing the contrasting positives
of Fezziwig's lifestyle, he instead is still trying to like
jam it into his value system. Like even as he's
walking up in that scene and he's like, this party
is really expensive, and fezzy Wig was like, what the
fuck's your problem?
Speaker 3: Did like, it's first mess.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be generous, have fun, drink, dance, who cares.
And you can kind of see how for Ebenezer it is.
Speaker 3: Not.
Speaker 1: It's just not how he views the world, which I
think just goes to show more of that how much
he values this way of thinking, in this way of being,
and it is like he met someone who's like an
extremely different religion and he can't square it, and so
it doesn't really go into him. Like I think now
at is older, he can view it as the memory
with more perspective, but in the moment he can't reconcile
how different this lifestyle is than the lifestyle he's been
raised to believe to be true.
Speaker 2: And this movie kind of glossed it over because it's
a kid's movie. But usually that Fezywig scene is a
little bit longer in different versions of this, So that's
one of the longer scenes. And whyat songer is because
we start seeing the contrasting present Scrooge looking back on
it with kind of old man eyes versus the younger
Scrooge who can't quite release himself and is really starting
to develop this more wooden version of himself before Bell
brings it out of him. And that's the thing that
kind of draws him out. His friends eventually can get
it out of him. You see as Scrooge ages as
we get into each different flashback, that that leaves him
just a little bit more each time.
Speaker 1: And I think it's it's a really interesting story of
how you can have these moments of turning it around.
And it's not as easy as maybe we want to
believe it is as easy as like having one good
I mean it can be. You know, one person can
enter your life and change it radically. And I think
what we're seeing with Ebenezer and this is maybe more
going into the attachment wounds.
Speaker 3: Part of it is.
Speaker 1: When you have gone through the emotional glect he's gone
through growing up. Even though he's trying to emotionally remove
himself from that, there's still that imprint of it, right,
And I think for him what that looks like is
I don't even know if he could let someone and well,
I guess he can't, like Fezziwig or Bell actually get
close to him. Like it even makes me wonder what
the Bell thing, how much of it is I can't
buy a house, which I think it's a big part
of it. And then it also makes me curious if
that's also a good excuse to keep her distant from him,
Like I wonder if there's a part of him that
does struggle with accepting. I'm sure this is true, accepting
that kind of love, accepting such like positive, optimistic, you know,
comfort love attention from both of those people would be
really uncomfortable for someone like Scrooge, even though you would
think it would do the opposite.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break here and we'll be back in
a few so. Attachment wounds is a concept that gets
talked about amongst therapists a whole lot and definitely has
been something that Attachment trauma has been a folk of
quite a few trainings that I've been taking over the
past few years, and has been one of the things
that's more entering the zeitgeist of our professional but I
don't know if it's transcending into the social zitegeist as
general of attachmounds. I know that we've been trying to
understand that everyone's a narcissist, but no.
Speaker 1: The girls on the internet, and by the girls, I
mean people in general love to talk about avoidant attachment,
anxious attachment. It's become it has become very.
Speaker 2: Buzzy attachment styles.
Speaker 1: Attachment styles even use the word attachment. So even us
talking about attachment wounds, we probably need to be very
clear about what we mean when we say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because attachment wounds can help define what attachment style is.
But I've seen many videos of everybody trying to understand
what everybody's attachment style is and what that means, and
it's become the next version of the Myers Briggs that
drives me fucking nuts. But what attachment wounds are are
things that happen to us over the course of our
life that make us feel like we've gotten punished for
showing the vulnerable side of ourself to someone else, and
that can impact how readily, how willingly, how quickly, and
how firmly we will attach to someone else. And as
you can see from good old Ebenezer here, if you
continually show someone that everything but them has no value,
this attachment wound will work both ways. Is that one
way is that they will show a great difficulty in
connecting to other people because they will have a lot
of trust issues. But also they will attach quite firmly
to something else. An idea concept e Scurage. His attachment
is not to people at all, but to success in business,
being the smartest, richest guy. That is all he cares about.
Other people's things are none of his concern. They're humbug
and particularly Christmas. Scrooge doesn't hate everyone and everything else.
He especially hates Christmas because while he watches everyone else
attach and feel warm and comfortable, he realizes even more
so how alone and unwanted he is. So he struggles
with attachment wounds. So when we look at an attachment wound,
it's an understanding that those happen at specific moments. It
can be a breakup, it can be trying to appeal
for the love of a parent. It can be little things.
It can be, like Hannah said, loose little things that
happen over and over and over again, where you're appealing
for a parent to care about you when you fall
and they don't even look at you. Or your spouse
or partner is looking for someone to care that they
at a hard day and you can't pull yourself out
of the TV or your phone. Eventually they start seeking
that connection from somewhere or someone else. Understanding these wounds
happen all the time in these little moments, and they
build and sometimes they're really big ones. But it's through
these we can through the balance of these wounds. And
I don't know what the opposite word I would want
to say is of an attachment wound, but the positive
attachment moments we have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think a Gottmann term could even
be like bits of connection, like moments in which connection
is reciprocated and rewarded.
Speaker 2: Right, and it forms a stronger bond. The things we
get a stronger bond to, we will start appealing to more.
Unfortunately for Scrooge, for him that was money and business success,
but understanding that attachment style is formed out of the
interaction of both of these. Not just like my mommy
loved me. No, it's much more than that.
Speaker 1: And I think he's an interesting case of because he
would be someone where I could see people arguing, even him,
arguing that that doesn't exist for him because he maybe
he got sent to a nice school and he always
had his needs met, his literal needs met. And I
think that can also be what keeps people from recognizing
something like this within themselves, even especially if it's connected
to their childhood or their relationship to their parents, is
that it's just confusing to be like, well, I did
get everything I needed technically, so I can't have a
problem like this, Or I wasn't abused, so I shouldn't
be having an issue like this, And so it's good
to recognize that it can be more nuanced than that. Yeah,
exactly exactly, because it matters. It matters how it makes
you feel, It matters how the other person responds, It
matters how we perceive the interaction going. Like I think
we can see Ebenezer, like we already kind of talked
about him kind of having to shift his reality to
make it make sense for himself. Right, he has to
talk about it in this really specific way of no,
like it was fine, it wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 2: Well more so it made me the man I am today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly like I wouldn't be who I was
if I didn't have to go through all this hard shit, right,
And I think, and that's very and it makes a
lot of sense that people come to that conclusion. And
it also makes it really hard to be flexible around
things that we actually needed and things that we really
wanted and needed somebody to say or point out or
support us with. And so it would make a lot
of sense that any attachment that Ebenezer makes is on
his terms only, which means he is not allowing himself
to really be connected to anyone else because that's not
safe for him.
Speaker 2: It is absolutely not. And I think as you were
talking about that, it occurred to me that there's another
side of the attachment thing that becomes really apparent in
behavior later on. Is that we learn vicariously by watching
our caregivers and our parents. But one of the things
that people don't often connect to is that we learn
whatever is adaptive. We don't just learn whatever is societally approvable.
And when you think about Scrooge, he is more closely
mirroring the behavior of his father, who showed him that
you can successfully lock out somebody you don't like, and
that if you take on that behavior, you can be stronger,
even though it hurt Young Scrooge. Old Scrooge who forms
this narrative just made me the man I am today.
All these beatings and ignoring and being left alone, and
I learned to be smart and I learned to survive. No,
that's adapting. But he also took on the knowledge and
then later mirrored and mimicked it by acting exactly like
the person that hurt him, and that shows up in
behavior all the time.
Speaker 3: I mean, have you seen the new Frankenstein movie?
Speaker 2: Not yet?
Speaker 1: It's freaking awesome. You need to see it on the
biggest TV you have. It's so but it is like
exactly what you just said happens, which is I have
I have become my father that I hate and that
I've been doing all this to spite, but yet I
become him.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I'll watch it on my biggest TV upstairs
one of these days. The biggest TV I have is
pretty good and I would like to see it. Looks
like it's good.
Speaker 1: And I think, as we're talking about this, what it's
bringing to mind for me is I worked with a
lot of kids that have been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder,
which is when a kid has been abused neglected, But
really a lot of it is more about that you
didn't have a solid attachment to someone, either because you
were bounced around to different caregivers, or your caregivers didn't
take care of you well and neglected do in some
capacity or mistreated you in some capacity, or even if
you had a caregiver that maybe was around, but they
were depressed and so you didn't get the emotional attachment
stuff that we need to get from a caregiver in
our life. And when you were talking earlierhand about hoarding,
that also connects to this for me in that when
I worked with kids that had reactive attachment disorder or
RAD for short, they would do a lot of hoarding
behaviors because they didn't feel like they were in control.
They knew that people, the adults in their lives didn't
necessarily want to or were able to take care of them.
And so a way that you survive, like you guys
are both talking about, like the ways that you adapt
and survive is by hoarding resources when they are available
to you.
Speaker 3: So kids with RAD will hoard food and.
Speaker 1: Not fun food, Like I've had kids with RAD that
would like hoard like cake mix, like the box powder
that's not good by itself, or like cans of vegetables.
Like it's not like kids that are stealing candy bars
and cookies.
Speaker 3: It's just truly like they're seeing.
Speaker 1: Food and they're like, I don't know when I will
see food again, so I'm gonna take it. And that
can be when they've even lived with a secure caregiver
for a while, those behaviors will show up. And so
I think, like another version of this is what we're
seeing with Ebenezer, which is I can control how much
money I make. I've learned how to do that, Like
I develop the skills to do that with the few
caregivers slash teachers I've had, And it does make you
feel safer because it doesn't involve anybody else. And so
when I've worked with kids that have more of the
inhibited RAD type, which is him in a lot of ways,
which is I don't really get close to anybody. I
don't let anyone get close to me. I act like
everyone can go fuck themselves, and I will get what
I can and I can get it, and I will
keep it for myself, I wouldn't be shocked if maybe
when Ebenezer was a kid, and if I worked with him,
I maybe could have given him a RAD diagnosis based
on him circumstances. But I think, yeah, this hoarding of
wealth can be a definite version of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure it can be. And as you watch
him in this old age before the spirit's intervened, think
about how many losses he's had and how much further
into that he retreats each time. You see it as
a kid, but he's also when he's old. He's lost
his sister, he's lost his business partner and friend, he's
lost Belle. Who is left besides cratch It that he
attaches to and the way he attaches to cratch It
is pretty rad.
Speaker 1: And his nephew too, And he has someone in his
life who is like truly open arms to him, right,
like you can do he can do whatever to his nephew,
and his nephew is still like, yo, you can come
to Christmas.
Speaker 3: We'll always have.
Speaker 2: You and his cnicle gun when you're not here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And his.
Speaker 1: Total removal response rejection response is yeah, a form of RAD.
I've worked with plenty of kids that they get adopt
did or they get into a caregiver situation with a
secure caregiver for years sometimes before I worked with them,
and they would still be very rejecting, like don't I
don't want to be hugged, I don't want to be touched,
I don't want to don't tell me you love me.
I'm not going to tell you I love you. And
when I work with the parents, I would encourage the
parents to chill the fuck out. And what I mean
by that is, don't put pressure on the kid. They
need time. Maybe it's going to be years and years
and years, if at all, to really know if they
can be vulnerable to you, Because that's really what it
is is can I am I ever going to be
safe enough, safe enough to trust enough to be squishy
and vulnerable to you? Because it's not just whether Ebenezer
feels love for his nephew or love for Crashed, or
love who for whoever, for Bell, which.
Speaker 2: He does in his way, but the more the culture
he gets, the more he rejects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not that's much whether he's capable of feeling
love for them. It's whether he feels like it won't
kill him emotionally literally maybe even to be open about
that love. That's really what can feel almost intolerably uncomfortable
and unsafe when someone has has deep attachment wounds. Is
then me asking them to open up to someone is
truly like I'm saying, I want you to rip your
heart out, and I want to hold it in your hands,
and I want you to put it in someone else's
hands who you just have to trust. Isn't gonna like
take that heart and just shove it between their fists
and squeeze it and then shove it onto the ground
and step on it. Because that's what his parents did.
You know what I mean, Like, that's where these woundes
come from. Is you had someone when you were a kid.
They did not hold your heart the way they should
have if they did it all. And so how are
you to trust that anyone else could do that?
Speaker 3: Why would you do that?
Speaker 2: And his nephew, at least the book implies. It never
clearly states, but his sister died young, but it seems
to imply she died, possibly in childbirth, So yet another
extra layer of complication of accepting that nephew. Because yet again,
something new and good can come into your life and
take away from you. So should you trust it? Should
you let it in? You might want to let it
in because it's the last piece, but also, nah, that's
going to get me hurt, so you stay frozen out.
When I worked with kids, so there's one kid in
particular who was absolutely head read. And remember he eventually
got adopted, and it was a struggle at first, and
you'd see like he was really attaching hard to this
person that was adopting him. And then once the adoptions
started getting closer, behaviors turned up almost as a test,
will you love me at my worst?
Speaker 1: No, they will test the absolute shit out of you.
Which is also what I used to have to coach
parents through, is that this kid is going to test
and your job is to stay calm and consistent with
them and just keep saying like, no matter what happens,
I'm not going anywhere. Do you wonder as you're saying that,
do you wonder with Bell if some of what he
was doing was like unconscious testing of her.
Speaker 2: I think he was probably at that point a little
too young to recognize it, but he may have been.
I think some part of it was. But I think
at that point he's so locked into the value that
he had that the only way he felt he could
be good enough was to lean into the strength side
of it. So it's kind of like a missing a
forest for the trees kind of thing. Hey, I need
to have business needs to be doing well enough that
I can support you and you can marry me, so
you don't leave me. That I have to be good enough,
and you have to see me it's good enough, and
I have to see me it's good enough, and that
the only way your silly feelings can't be in those
are silly. It has to be I have to have
enough business sense that it makes sense on the ledger
for us to be married and me to be a
good husband, where she just wants him to be present
and there and him, you know, attend to her. And
I think at some point she tells him that she
feels like she's become like a golden idol or something,
or that business has become a golden idol. There's some
mention of that, like really elevating how she feels like
she is left behind and not seen anymore and that's
why she left.
Speaker 1: And what you're saying is is so real in the
sense that when you grow up in this situation Ebenezer
did with his parents. Also, it wouldn't ever occur to
him that someone would just want to be with him
because they love him. Like the idea of Belle not
caring about the money stuff as much, that he doesn't
have to demonstrate his value via money because she already
believes that he is value is like another thing that
would be hitting him like an alien belief.
Speaker 3: So it does maybe wonder too with him.
Speaker 1: Another way to think of it is maybe it really
did surprise him that it would push her away that
he has to wait untill he is enough money. Like
I could also see because of how bought in he
is to that as a value that of course she
wouldn't want to get married either until I have enough money.
Speaker 3: And so we're both on the same page about that.
Speaker 1: So I also wonder if maybe it was quite shocking
for him that that would actually break them apart instead
of something that she would have like an inherent understanding of.
Speaker 2: I think that you're right that I think it does
surprise him. But he also doesn't do anything to say no,
wait stop, he doesn't.
Speaker 1: That's the rat of it all too, Like he's like
well see there you go. Of course, on how he
just walks away in that scene, right, she's singing and
he's just like, Okay, well I guess this ain't gonna work,
so he just walks away.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 1: Having again that awareness, like he doesn't have awareness about
what even being in the middle relationally is like, right,
he's only experienced the extremes, right, So when you've only
experienced the extremes the kind of natural experiences that we have,
seems so they're too comfortable.
Speaker 3: They're too they don't have.
Speaker 1: The chaos attached to them the way that their other
experiences have. So that's a part of why they feel
so uncomfortable. You mean, like kind of when we talk
about like the window of tolerance in regards to trauma. Yeah,
that when you're used to, Yeah, when we were used
to really elevated situations calm. It's like, i mean, like
this is stereotype, right, And I'm sure we've all had
this experience with clients where they have a trauma background
and they're finally in a relationship that's Jill, and they
can't stop talking about how boring it is it else
and how there's something wrong with the fact that it's
so boring and that they need to break up with
them because it's not working, And I'll be like, are
we bored or are we just like not so hyper
aroused in a traumatized way that too.
Speaker 2: I think there's real struggle with people who have been
in really chaotic situations that they only look for and
register the extremes but don't understand the in betweens having,
like normal relationships go through ups and downs, and sometimes
you're a little more connected, sometimes you're a little less,
but it's okay. And they're looking for that like complete
toxic love situation because all the love they know and
understand was toxic and came with severe ties consequences at
the end of those toxic periods, Like if look at Scrooge,
Scrooge only learned well, if I connect emotionally and assign
emotional value to these things, I'm gonna get the extreme
reaction of being abandoned and my family's gonna see me
as a pain in the ass, and that my dad
hates me. So if I attached him, I'm just gonna
get hurt. But if I attach fully to money, I'm
gonna get praise, and that's gonna be really good. So
he struggles to recognize how hard he's shifting into that
I love money and I need to do everything because
money is the only way that I actually feel good enough,
and he doesn't connect. In the minute Bell shows him yep, gonna,
I'm gonna go, he doesn't pursue her because he's just
gonna get hurt, and he leans even further into money.
Speaker 1: So sad and I feel like with I think it's
also interesting that with Ebenezer, he the first relationship that
he tries to repair after having the miraculous dreams and
all that piece is a relationship that he's only connected
through business. With Bob Cratchittt is the first person that
he can even consider to repair a relationship with because
the attachment to Bob is through is as his employee,
and that he is almost I don't want to say
guaranteed a positive response, but more guaranteed than maybe Bell,
than maybe with Belle.
Speaker 2: You have a very good point. The Cratches the second
person he goes to. He goes to the nephew first,
but he does way more work with Bob, which I
think lends very strongly to your point. I think he
always connects with the nephew first because he goes to
the family bond, but he doesn't stay very long. He
just kind of he kind of like hits and miss
unlets his nephew know, like, Hey, I am going to
come see you on Christmas. But then also he dips out.
And I know in this version, like the nephew shows
up at Cratchit's and they have like a big party.
I don't think that happens in the other ones.
Speaker 1: But you're right in that with Bob, he can use
the language that he's already comfortable speaking, Like the way
that he shows Bob love and to repair the relationship
is I will give you a raise, I'll pay off
your house, and like I'll help tiny Tim get what
he needs, like I'll spoil you monetarily as a way
to become attached with each other, Which isn't I mean,
like that's it's the yeah, you're right hand, It's like
the safest way. And I don't think it's like the
worst thing. I think it's just him having to walk
before he walk before he runs.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's a bad thing at all.
Speaker 1: I think, in fact, it would be an example of
I talk a lot about with clients about out how
we instead of trying to correct something with someone new,
why don't we choose a person that we've known for
a while and share something with them first to see
if there's a better outcome, right, Because people always want
to try it out on someone new. They want to
wait until they have this new experience so that they
can show out these new ideas and awareness that they
now have of themselves. And that's when boundary setting can
really fail when we try to do it with someone
new versus with someone that we already have a connection.
Speaker 2: With and end up love bombing and not recognizing that
someone else might look at that and go WHOA way
too much, way too soon. Yeah, and we can throw
the other person who's trying to do this miraculous recovery
of all the things that have always been wrong with me,
which is just such an ADHD thing to do. But
these people that go through this exact thing you're talking
about the consequence of that can be people who have
not encountered what is happening here, going like, ah way
too much. What we see in that cycle is that
this person is reaching out for connection and they're showing
a bit for connection, and it's getting rejected because they're
too much and they're showing too much, and they're trying
to fix and place way too much emotional weight on
this relationship, and the other person's like, I'm trying to
figure out if I like hanging out with you. This
is a little bit, a little bit early. And there's
a line from Supertroopers. I don't know if I've said
on this show before, but I do love Supertroopers. It
makes me laugh. Is desperation is a stinky cologne, And man,
is that not more true in a relationship and you
feel somebody trying to do that thing. Hannah talk about
it like I'm gonna fix everything it's ever been wrong
because I learned this new skill and now I'm gonna
fix everything. And everything with you is just gonna work out,
and you're gonna be the person in my dreams. And
I'm pretty sure that's what the movie with Joseph Gordon
Levin that we did was about five Hundred Days of
the Summer kind of about that thing, and like, no, you
fell in love with the idea of a person, not
the person.
Speaker 1: And it's also a shortcut, right, I'm gonna start over
fresh with someone new, instead of having to do the
more vulnerable work, which is go to someone that already
has a history with me and I have a reputation
with them, and I have to see the true vulnerability
is like showing up and then seeing if things can
turn around. Is like we're like I was kind of
talking about, like opening up my heart a little bit
and seeing if they can receive it or not, and
tolerating that experience, which is much more brutal than or
feels much more brutal than going to someone new who
has no idea of who you are that you can
create a new idea with. And his nephew speaks through
the language of love, you know. His nephew is very
like warm and fuzzy, and that is really uncomfortable. It's
making me think of because Hannah and I watched Scrooge
last night, which is the Bill Murray retelling of this story.
And actually Bill Murray, I think, does a really good job,
maybe the best job, of conveying this thing we're talking
about right now.
Speaker 3: But in his story it's his brother, not his nephew.
Speaker 1: And the way that Bill Murray looks so not distraught,
I don't know if you have a better word for it, Hannah.
But he looks so emotionally uncomfortable around his younger brother,
and not because he doesn't like his brother. You can
actually tell that the more he likes his brother, the
more he's like, I gotta get the fuck out of here.
It's like he can't tolerate being around his brother because
of all the warm and fuzzy energy around his brother,
and how he doesn't know how to deal with that,
and so he just doesn't even try, and he just
like skips out. And I think that's a really realistic
version of a really realistic portrayal of what we're discussing,
which is how when you aren't used to these kind
of things being around it.
Speaker 3: Will make you uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And it's good when you work with clients to name
that so that they're prepared for that and so they
don't misunderstand the discomfort for like I'm doing the wrong
thing or this isn't right, or however they might very
understandably miss construe or identify the discomfort they're feeling. That
It is one of the many things in therapy where
you have the opposite reaction that then you think you
would have, and so it is our duty as therapist
to give people a heads up so that they don't
free can leave, which I can understand if they did,
and that they have to sit in the discomfort of
the squishiness of the vulnerability. But yeah, his nephew, even
though you think he'd be like the safest option, in
some ways, I think will be the hardest for him.
Speaker 2: I'll definitely be the hardest, agree, because there's real emotional
connection there and real work to do that's going to
go far beyond just that employer relationship, no doubt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a good point too that with cratch It,
they have that natural boundary, yeah, of employer and employee,
and so he can use that to his advantage, whether.
Speaker 3: He's and I don't.
Speaker 1: And I'll say I don't think he's doing that consciously,
but that there is safety with that natural boundary, yep.
Speaker 2: And he can yet again step in and use the
money that he's learned to control and stabilize the world
with to control and stabilize that relationship. Cratch It will
not leave songs he pays improperly and you know, keeps
this little boy from dying of whatever disease he has,
and then he can have a pseudo Marley to have
a connection with, but just better. But he doesn't have
to reinvent the wheel because it gets real clear that
the relationship with the nephew is gonna it's going to
take some more time because also the nephew is not
going to know that Scrooge saw him with the ghost
of Christmas present, going well, it's not a rat and
it's not a cockroach. What's something else that nobody wants
at Christmas? Oh Scrooge, Oh, that's going to take some
time for him to repair. Even though the movie shows
us he's recognizing like, oh, yeah, I'm kind of an asshole.
Huh Yeah, that's not the way emotions work. You might
have context for it in that moment when you're vulnerable
and learning, but the more protective voice and parts of
you were going to show up later and be like, ah,
this motherfucker inviting you to dinner is the same one
that said you were less desirable than a rat and
a cockroach, Right, that's who him. M M humbug.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break care and we'll be
right back to talk about values and the divine intervention
aspect of this story, all right, So what made me
think of that, Ben, is what you said about the
context in which he receives Scrooge that information. Is that
Something that does propel the story obviously is the fact
that he's having a wild experience that is forcing him
to confront his past trauma and attachment wounds, but also
his values. How that reaches through to all the parts
of his life, both past, present and the future.
Speaker 2: It sure does. And it's real clear that it's not
just a bit of bad meat or a piece of
rotten cheese. I know that, right, But instead it's a
divine intervention with the intent to make a change on
a profoundly lost man, to keep him from getting more lost,
and sort of the story kind of implies that the
divine intervention is coming from Marley or someone releasing Marlee
to go talk to him as the only voice that
will reach him. But the first person that comes to
talk to him from beyond the grave is Jacob Marley.
All in chains with chain to the money, which is
a really powerful vision that's also been enduring of like
carrying around all these heavy chains, chain to the things,
change to your sins and being. He kind of implied
he's not necessarily stuck in hell, but stuck in purgatory
with these chains to carry around until he can pay
for his sins. If ever and warning Scrooge, hey, I'm
still stuck here. You have time. I don't. But we
see these values that he's developed start to crack after
each of these spirits start showing him his own life.
Moment after moment, he's forced to consider, how did I
form these beliefs and do I still believe them? Value
formation is a pretty powerful component of how we see
and understand the world, and if you talk about things
through a cognitive behavioral lens, they're the deepest and most
difficult layer to challenge and change. You can't challenge and
change them without a very big event happening. Something's got
to really make you reconsider how you view things, or
you won't because these are the things that I've been taught.
They're tried and true. When we think about Scrooge, what
do we see his values as well?
Speaker 1: I would say he values money, obviously, but I would
say underneath money what he values is independence, hard work,
hyper individualism. You know, even earlier when they were talking
about the two guys come in to get donations and
he's like, why don't they work hard or something like that.
He's like, he is espousing this idea that, yeah, bootstrap
shit like the meritocracy lie that our country loves, which
is that if you just worked hard enough that you
would be fine, which in his story I guess technically
is true in that he just devoted his whole self
to making money and he is idolizing that about himself. Right,
So I think he would say that he values hard work,
and he values being financially literate and being I don't
think he would say cheap or whatever they call him.
I think he would just say like responsible, frugal, you know,
not concerned with frivolities. And underneath that value though that
I don't think he would identify, is how that's connected
to his feelings of like safety, security, control, power, all
that kind of stuff that makes him feel like he's
in control.
Speaker 3: Because that's also why not to get on a whole tangent.
Speaker 1: All those people are so invested in this idea of
meritocracy in America, and people will I mean, I get
into arguments sometimes with people in my life about the
idea of meritocracy, and I think it's It goes back
to this idea that it is. It is a safe,
comforting idea for a lot of people that if you
just work hard, you can kind of have total control
over your future and over what happens to you. And
so I think he's in that trap.
Speaker 2: Well, Scrooge is from the aristocracy already. I mean, yes,
he's in that trap, but he's in that trap of
trying to apply it to other people while not recognizing
he's above.
Speaker 3: It exactly because he's exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's basically That's all Dickens's work is examining
the Victorian England and how fucking ridiculous it is that
the rich just prey on the poor. That's David Copperfield.
All these stories that are about that, and all of
them have that lesson in there. It's clear that Dickens
was trying to kind of create that message of like hey, hey, hey, no, like,
are you serious right now, Oliver Twist, Like we're you
see where these kids are living in a workhouse. Who's
making money off that? It ain't them. They're going to
be living this kind of life, working in workhouses their
entire life unless something magical happens, some big intervention, and
Scrooge is absolutely lampooning that idea that the meritocracy is real. Like, no,
if you were born rich and you had all these advantages,
then you can expect to be rich. But get out
of here rich men thinking that all these poor people
can just work really hard like I did. Like you
mean at that private, fancy boarding school you went to
and weren't in the workhouses that one. That's where you
learned all these things from people your parents paid to
teach them, do.
Speaker 1: You, And that's where he gets challenged values wise. I
think with like being shown Bob Cratchett, right, is that
that's also someone who works really hard, who works his
fucking ass off, because Scrooge makes him work his ass off,
and yet he lives in a shithole. He can't get
his kid proper care that they are not doing well. Nope, financially,
even though that guy is working his absolute ass off
and really trying to be everything that Scrooge wants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he won't even pay for him to be warm
at work, which means he's probable to get sick and
die himself, and then his family will land in the poorhouse.
It's really quite a pointed message of no, rich Man,
it is not quite what you think. And yet people,
I love that story, and yet again it's the fucking point.
Speaker 1: And it's very difficult to, like you were saying, challenge
our values like we I mean, that's why I think
in his story, he has like the most bananas experience
where it really blows the doors off his brain right,
like he's being visited by ghosts, Like even the introduction
of Marley, I'm sure is trying to like soften his
brain for the experience he's about to have, like we're
going to crack this bitch open because it's about to.
Speaker 3: Get blown to smotherings.
Speaker 1: And so we do see people have big value shifts
when something bananas happens in their lives, like in your
death experience or a big loss of some sort, and
they feel ready to challenge the idea that what they
have been devoted to, the ideas that they've really cashed
in on, maybe they're not really it. And that takes
a lot of humility and introspection, like you really have
to be willing to break down the way that you've lived.
I mean, in the religious aspect, they call deconstructing. I
think that term is from when people leave evangelical Christianity specifically,
that's the way I've heard it be used, but I
think it's an apt term, like you have to deconstruct
yourself and your identity and what you believe to be
true about the world from like the studs up perhaps,
and he would have to do that, and that's a
really hard thing for most people to do, and it's
a very confronting thing to do.
Speaker 2: Even on a non religious and non values thing. Once
you started talking about deconstruction, American history class started occurring
in my head again, which you know, seems a little
relevant right now as we talk about a British movie.
But the post war period, for the Civil War, the reconstruction,
the post Civil War period was called the reconstruction. And
it wasn't called the reconstruction just because we were literally
rebuilding things after the war. It was reconstructing the ideas
and values of what our nation was to be because
slavery was now ended. And yes, as from our you know,
two movies ago, we did we know it got a
little complicated and the change was a little resisted, and
not just a little, a lot resisted, and a lot
of horrible things still happened with Jim Crow laws and segregation.
Things went through an intense period of revamping what the
entire world is going to look like. And it took
war to do that, to go like, hey, you can't
keep slaves anymore. You just can't. Your economy cannot be
based on that. We can't keep doing that. And the North,
you're lying if you think you weren't benefiting because you
were buying goods from the South, So like we're all
kind of participating in and if we're not, well, slaver
is not legal. And North you're still buying shit from
the South. You're benefiting on that. And they had to
recorrect all those values that were formed. People must go
deconstruct and reconstruct. That's what happens during military training. That
happens work training is what happens a lot of things.
You have to go through periods where something big has
to change in your life that forces you to confront
the old habits, old beliefs, old ways of doing things
and make them invalid and incompatible with the present way
of living. And that's what happens to Scrooge is he's
forced to deconstruct, Well, these are the ways we'd be safe.
This is the way I keep black people locked out,
and this is the way I'm actually better. And each
moment we see if Scrooge's life makes us see that
he's in fact lying to himself and he's miserable. He
won't even give Bob enough coal to stay warm, and
he won't even give himself enough light to see and
read the books that he espouses to love, and he
only leads work when's dark. What enrichment does he have?
But would he ever have seen it that way had
Spirits not come and gave him a transcendent experience?
Speaker 1: And for him, it's having that repeated confronting experience which
sometimes we as therapist provide, unfortunately for our clients, but
fortunately where it is shown to you that you actually
do care about the things or value the things that
you say that you don't. So he does care about
what people say about him. He does care when they
see both the moment where he gets made fun of
at his nephews, but also that he cares when he
gets spoken in a loving way at Bob Cratchett's house.
And he cares a lot of I mean, he has
like a full mental breakdown when he realizes that no
one gives a shit at his funeral, that no one
cares that he died. People are talking mad shit about him.
They just want his stuff. And it's really challenging for
him that you say you value money, finances, your capital,
and yet when people after your death are only talking
about your capital as what they care about with you,
like those pigs saying like who gets his money? It
doesn't feel good. It actually really upsets you. So be real,
you know, in that moment, death without talking is saying,
be real, you do care. And so what you're saying
you value and what your actions are connecting to value
wise isn't really hitting what you actually actually actually emotionally
care about.
Speaker 2: It is not And it takes yeah, busting that wide
open to go like this, this is actually what you
care about, Like yeah, you notice he didn't have any
reaction to he knew whose jewelry that was, he knew
whose bed curtains those where he's just dissociating from it
and likese he's overloaded, But he didn't show the strong
reaction to that. He showed the strong reaction to being
seen as disposable, not mattering, and the kiddie versions of
this outside of mister Magoo's Christmas Carol really kind of
gloss over the robbers, like this version like showed like
the spider and the creepy things, but you get kind
of caught up in that it's a creepy spider and
those things. To really understand what's happening here is these
are people that like go in and scavenged the houses
of rich people that died when they think no one's looking,
and they're really like scummy and gross, and they're breaking
down his value into what trinkets they can steal that
might be worth a dollar. Yikes, You're being scavenged by
buzzards and crows. That's what the imagery is here. And
him seeing that he didn't react, and he never does
to his things. He's never like, those are my things,
that's my thing. It pains him to see he's discarded,
not that he has no more value, and that's I
think where you start to see a real shift. But man,
this movie kind of let him off the hook light.
And I don't know if Mickey's Christmas Carolyn and cover
that part, do they. Mister mcgoo's is the one that
sticks out in my head most it's like I've never even.
Speaker 3: Heard of mister Chas either, no ever. I mean I
know who mister is obviously.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, there's like a song from that because we
watched that one a lot. There's like a song from
that that sticks out of my head of him like
singing about money ringle jingle coins out of they tingle.
Oh how I love the sound and like the Burglar
people basically sing another version of that song that really lands,
but they're really creepy and gross, kind of like a
master of the House kind of song like m And.
Speaker 1: If I was working with Ebenezer, Let's say in this hypothetical,
I'm working with Ebenezer, he's had this experience. He comes
and maybe hasn't changed yet, but he comes to my
office and he's like, can you believe these people talking
about me after my death and that they just wanted
this thing that I have in this thing that I
have and a strategy I could see me taking with
someone like him is but isn't that what you But
isn't that good?
Speaker 3: That's what you care about, right, Like, that's what you.
Speaker 1: Wanted to represent, is a bunch of stuff, and so
you should feel good that that's what people care about,
and that's what they want from you after your death.
It's a bit of spitting in his soup, you know,
kind of like leaning into his way of thinking as
a way to challenge him, because then he would have
to make the opposite argument to me in that back
and forth, and that would have to require him challenging himself.
Well no, I mean yeah, but I want them to like,
I'm like, yeah, but you didn't say but you don't
care about that, right, You're not fostering that. You don't
care what people say about you. You don't care about
having a good impression on people. That's not you, right,
So yeah, And like I said, that's a technique that
then puts.
Speaker 3: The ball back in your court as the client.
Speaker 1: You'd be like, oh, well, either I have to agree
with what you're saying, which I don't want to, or
I have to truly make an argument against my own
verbalized beliefs. And that's why they say like bad therapists
give advice, And what they mean by that in a
lot of ways is.
Speaker 3: As a therapist, I'm not supposed to tell you the
stuff like this.
Speaker 1: Necessarily, we ask you questions that then provoke you to
tell yourself, which is harder to ignore.
Speaker 2: Right, and let you sit in it. A good therapist
knows that exact moment when you get the aha, or
you see someone's eyes going back and forth and then
like changing their facial expression, their affecting Oh wait, you
mean it's oh hah, that sucks. You learn to just
go hmm, say nothing in those moments, let them sit
in it.
Speaker 1: I think that that is a really helpful strategy to
use with clients because them hearing it from themselves and
experiencing it for themselves and being able to make that
connection after we I'd let them sit in it or
help them make that connection, right, because that's a big
part of what we do. We help piece together the
parts of the story that you don't can't always see
clearly because you're the one who's in the story.
Speaker 3: And I think that.
Speaker 1: When I feel like I really see him change, and
maybe it's just in this version, when I feel it,
really feel like I see him changes when he's with
the Ghost of Christmas Present, and that the Ghost of
Christmas Present, which is the one that mostly you guys
are talking about where he kind of gets to experience
the love and the joy of Christmas with this one
ghost who was really excited about Christmas and wants to
celebrate and wants to show him all the beautiful things
about it. And I feel like that's one of those
parts where Ebenezer really feels like he's really like he
really didn't know.
Speaker 3: What Christmas was about.
Speaker 1: He didn't really know what all that what all the
big deal is about it, And so in this moment
with where he's getting shown what it could be like,
he actually gets a chance to realize that this could
happen for him, this could be something that he could experience.
And I feel like that's a part where I really
notice him being more open and more flexible with this
ghost versus the other ghost.
Speaker 3: I think it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it challenges this idea too of what do I
actually want versus what am I engaging in behaviorally? And
that's how I usually will do it with clients in
normal therapy. Is like with Ebenezer and him being like,
well I like that, and I like that, and I
don't like that, and then I'll be like, okay, but
but how is the way you're living behaviorally connecting to
or going away from those values? And that's what you
really have to take responsibility for a lot of times
we do walk around in this life. I think Ebenezer's
not a great example of this, actually, because he does
have stated values and he is living by those values.
Speaker 3: In the version of him that we see for most
of the movie.
Speaker 1: But I'd say with most people though that I work with,
who we have these kind of discussions, they are saying
one thing and doing another. Well, I really value my family,
but I spend eighty two hundred hours a week at work. Well,
then you don't value your family. You value work or
money or whatever it is that you're getting out of
that behavior.
Speaker 2: Or maybe that can jingle all the way. I'll be
at your tournament, yeah, I'll see your karate.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Or maybe that is how you value family.
Speaker 1: That's how you think you're valuing family by working a ton,
But is that actually getting you closer to that thing
that you're wanting or what even that means to you.
Speaker 3: And one of the ways that I work.
Speaker 1: With clients about values is even just helping people have
awareness of the values they're actually holding is so helpful
because so often people are completely unaware that there have
that awareness of oh, I'm working eighty two one hundred hours.
I really don't value my family, like people don't have
any awareness about the things that they value because they
either go by what they've been told by their family,
they go by what society is telling them. But they
don't really have a buy in to the values that
they should be connected to because they're behaving around all
these values in reaction. So I feel like values is
a place where I'll walk in to help somebody figure
out what they want to do, if they want to
change their career path, if they want to do something different,
we do Values work to help them have some insight
into the things that they actually give a fuck about
versus the things that they were told to give a
fuck about.
Speaker 2: Values is powerful, and it embeds early, and it's yet
another idea that we reject that yet again, there are
ancient wisdom, or there is ancient wisdom about it, including
one that was mentioned in this book or in this movie.
They showed the head of Aristotle and Plato's The Republic
is Teachings from Aristotle where they cover this idea of
like values formation. In order to really reform of society,
you'd essentially have to make sure everyone is given the
same set of values, Otherwise the values that come from
their family are going to conflict with whatever values the
republic needs to function ideally. And we've known that for
two thousand years, and people still struggle with these concepts
that we're talking about right now, like, well, I mean
values are easy to change, No they're not. It takes
quite the existential experience sometimes and sometimes not.
Speaker 1: Even then, I do this whole thing where I have
this exercise that has twenty five values on it, and
then we go through. They have to go through to
decide quite important, very important, not important, don't give a shit.
Speaker 2: About and so.
Speaker 1: And once they do that, we come back to see
what percentage of time do you want to be focusing
on this value? So how often do you want to
be focusing on this? And then we break it down
to see, well, I want to be doing this once
a week, I want to be doing this once a month, whatever.
Speaker 3: And so that's how I help them.
Speaker 1: Shift their behaviors towards their values by figuring out what
percent of the time do you want to be engaging
in this because right now it's like two percent, and
you want it to be at ten. We got to
get eight percent up in order to get to where
you actually want it to be.
Speaker 3: And so I feel like with.
Speaker 1: Ebenezer, kind of getting all of his values shook around
while he's going through this experience, I think that would
definitely be something that I would want to do with
him in treatment to continue helping him. Well, we are
kind of sliding into treatment talk, so before we take
a break and get into that more, is there anything
else specifically about values we want to mention? I think
the only thing I'd want to add specific to Ebenezer
or someone like Ebenezer is also when you get into
values work with clients, it's like is this a value?
Or is this a survival mechanism? Is this a trauma response?
Is it all of those things? And so for him,
I don't think it would be as easy either as
I don't like that I'm caring about this, I don't
care about this. Instead, I think he'd also have tous
discernment around like is this something?
Speaker 3: Is this a value? Or is this me trying to
protect myself?
Speaker 1: I think with him, a lot of this miserly behavior
is a trauma response reaction, and so he'd have to
be able to tell the difference. And once we kind
of identify how much of this stuff as survival strategies,
what's left, how much of that is actual genuine values
versus safety responses.
Speaker 2: And IFS language right would be firefighters show up to
kind of be the protectors, right managers who are like
the parts we keep to keep everything, and exiles are
the parts of ourselves that we try to help keep
under reps and don't let anybody see because there's things
in there that no, no, no no. It's where the
wounds are, It's where the the shame is, where the
guilt is. So understanding how those three kind of work
together kind of like as signs a different language to
the idea you're a sign you're talking about here. That's
IFS language is real specific on self managers, firefighters, and exiles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not trained in IFS, and I do
what I like about what I have learned so far
about IFS is like that differentiation and how that can
help even do what I'm talking about for Ebeneezer, which
is like what's what in why you move the way
you move and identifying mats. You can have some separation,
and then I assume you can correct me. I think, Canna,
you've been teaching yourself a lot of ifs, but like
yourself is probably more of where your like genuine values live. Yeah,
I would say, I would say in some ways, yeah,
the self is where we hold There's these eight C words,
of course, because it's therapy and because somebody had to
come up with it, right, So it's you're connected to clarity, creativity, curiosity, courage.
I can usually remember a couple I haven't written on
a note on my desk. Do you remember the rest ben.
Speaker 2: Not off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: But the.
Speaker 2: Dick Schwartz Cward things don't mean you know. What they're
all about is about flexibility. They're about adaptability, flexibility and
trusting yourself and the ability to respond with all that
you are comfortably versus when you're firefighter is on. That's
a real limited, inflexible part that shows up to keep
you safe and it's going to do whatever it has
to do to peth the fire. It's not going to
respond with creativity, compassion, any of those things like well
maybe we can use a little bit of this and
a little bit of that and maybe a little bit
over here without having to show up with we are
doing this right now, and that is it, because that
is all that we do. And when you look at
Ebenezer the you see him become all the sward functions
when he's buying the turkey and he's allowing himself to laugh.
He's kind of responding flexibly to everything that happens within
this devices. But it's very different that you feel that
firefighter step in when they're like like, oh, look and
here's you at school. Nope, that made me the man
I am today. We won't be looking at that any further,
thank you, boop boop, because that's an exile that lives there,
and the firefighters start to protect the exile, Whereas the
self could look at that in a balance way like oh, well, yeah,
that was painful, but I learned some stuff from that,
and I don't want to repeat it, but like I
learned about it what I should do and not do.
Speaker 1: Well, let's take a break here and move right back
with treatment. So this is you know, we've only been
talking about one person, so a treatment. We've kind of
already been talking about what we would do with Ebeneezer,
and I think something we have started alluding to is
he has gone through this great intervention, this divine intervention,
but in real life, I would be curious, like once
the euphoria wears off of the experience, he's going to
start to have to actively practice and so sometimes with clients.
And this is more of like an acceptance equipment therapy technique.
Speaker 3: That involves a lot of values.
Speaker 1: Work is just like mapping out our values and using
that as like a guiding star in different situations, like
if I do this instead of that, is that aligning
with my value or is it going against my value?
As a way to stay ground in these situations where
it might be hard to intellectualize that in the moment, I.
Speaker 2: Think working through these kinds of things with Scrooge is
really challenge because he's going to need reinforcement of these
new behaviors. Otherwise it's going to be real easy. Like
you said, once the ephorio wears off, like this is
going to have to become internalized to become a new value.
If we don't internalize this as a new value, he's
going to convince himself that he did. He either did
enough as it is, and he doesn't need to repeat
it like well, I mean I raise scratch its salary
and like I say, merry Christmas now, so we're good.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because it's work.
Speaker 1: To do it differently, especially no offense to him at
his age, he's going to really have to actively do
things differently, Like he cannot go back on autopilot for
maybe the rest of his life given his age. Like
every choice he's making now has to be a thoughtful one.
Speaker 2: He must be mindfully engaged to do things different much
like people who are choosing to live a sober life.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure, that's what they have, Like even the
Sertinity prayer is that something they have to do to
practice that intentionality, Like it's always on their mind. That's
why there's so much constant work with that. It's a
great comparison.
Speaker 2: Well, and why the most core value of it is
one day at a time.
Speaker 3: Mmmmmm.
Speaker 2: Scrooge is going to change one day at a time.
We see him in this fantastical moment where a writer
living in Victorian England through the Industrial Revolution was like, hey,
rich people, you need do we need to scare the
shit out of you to get you to change? What's
what gives? What is it that's going to get you
to see the reality that the rest of us see
that children are working in workhouses. People are being taken
advantage of, and there's halves and haves nots, and it's
not this like glorious time for England where everyone is
great and England is the greatest country. It's great for
some of us. For others, it really sucks and maybe
you need to wake the fuck up so you see
it kind of energy is what you know book is about.
And like the actual writing of it, which I think
I've only seen done really in the George she Scott
is like the ghost of Christmas Present goes hard at
Scrooge and like showing him like the like these are
your children that come out from his legs, and like
they're like struggle in something that it's really pointed of
pointing out the things you are doing are producing their nakedness,
their fear, their pain, and you must stop. This bit
of happiness you'll see won't exist. And it's a harder
version than we usually see because normally the Ghost of
Christmas Present is kept kind of jolly and happy. Every
so often you see a version that goes a little
more true to the book and goes hard. I think
reinforcing all of this and closing off all the dissociation
to all of that societal misery that Scrooge has been
gleefully ignoring so he can fill his coffers and put
in his little ledgers that look, I made more money
today then, so I'm not failing. Helping him to hold
this behavior is going to take mindfully staying present in
how much he's been hoarding, how much he really holds
onto and how little other people have, and how much
This balance shift that he's supposed to represent could produce
meaningful change if he adheres to it, and that could
allow him to find this place of love and opening
his heart and wallet for him, because it's the same thing,
is going to have to be both components of This
is going to take him a lot of work to
undo that value formation we talked about earlier that he
needs to be the richest and most closed off because
he's going to start feeling unsafe really quick in actuality.
As soon as he lets that guard down, he's going
to feel unsafe, and that pullback like you mentioned with
happening with kids with red who are about to be adopted,
All that testing is about to need to happen, and
he's he might have one day where we see this
glorious turnaround. But the other days he is going to
be looking at his ledger with like you spent how
much on that turkey that prize turkey that you ate
like four bites of how much did you spend? And
he's going to get uncomfortable with it and he's going
to struggle, and what he's going to need is support
through existential therapy that's helping him connect to meaning of
why are you doing this? What change are you trying
to create? What purpose are you trying to live? Who
are you? And there's a line that's mentioned over and
over in this one and some of the others about
living in past, as and future simultaneously. This is what
we try to do in EMDR. There's three prongs if
EMDR Past, Present, future, and you have to do treatment
in each one of those things. You repair the holes
in the past to deactivate the response in the future
and make them believe that they can continue to do
so through their future self. That is what needs to
happen for Scrooge, and that's kind of what this film
sets up, is he will live in past, present, and
future as in understanding where my wounds are, how to
avoid repeating them and how to become the man I
want to be and make positive change in this world.
So I think for Scrooge there's kind of a blend
of incorporating some of the AA change policies and philosophy
and also working with him on the meaning behind the
changes he's being asked to do. The discomfort he's asking
himself to feel as assigning a new value to that
that makes it worth it to deal with the profound
discomfort he's going to go through making those changes.
Speaker 1: So a part of what I would want to do
with Ebeneezer, because like you've both said, one day of
excitement does not heal a lifetime's worth of experiences. So
and healing trauma with clients, which is what you would
be doing with Eupen easier, takes time, and it takes
time for lots of different reasons. And it's something that
I try to talk to my clients about because everybody
wants to know when are they going to feel better?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: When am I going to feel better? When am I
going to stop having these thoughts? When am I going
to be stopped being afraid of taking risks?
Speaker 3: When?
Speaker 1: When? When? Right? And I think that something that I
want to point out is that it takes time, and
a big part of that is, first we have to
establish the trust between you and I, and that trust
between you and I is going to take a little
bit of time, especially if you've had attachment wounds, right,
and so first you have to trust me, and then
I have to help you trust yourself. That's a big
part of what Ebenezer will need in order to get
to the work that Ben and Brittany are talking about.
And so that's just something that I wanted to point out.
But other than that, I think what you've both suggested
make a lot of sense. And he's definitely gonna need
more work because throwing money at the problem is essentially
what he did, and while it may feel very meaningful
and very important, it doesn't didn't necessarily make for him
having to create a new narrative for himself where he
could be a different person. Well, there's a whole like
category of social skills that he's never developed. Yeah, like
he doesn't like that would be a lot of the
work too, is how do I initiate.
Speaker 3: Whatever, how a bid for connection? Yes, which is right?
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what's the Victorian version of like
asking someone to hang right, but he doesn't have those
things right like being Vonne knowing how to ask for
those things. And when you were saying like trusting himself,
trust himself in a different way. He probably trust himself
a lot when it comes to like money and whatever
skills that he can recognize and hold on to. But
it's more like, can I trust that I have inherent value? Yes,
and that other people could, maybe God forbid, see that
value and want to take care of that, and that
I can trust myself to handle it if I'm not
rewarded in the moment for how I'm trying to do
things differently. Because that's like even what you were saying
to Ben about like the existential part of it, like
the why is what also keeps you going when you're
not getting rewarded for all the changes you're making. Because
he's not, he's a bad reputation, He's probably gonna get
a lot of people that are going to come at
him sideways.
Speaker 2: Get a lot of pushback.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And so he really needs to hold on
to something bigger than that.
Speaker 1: And he's in such a reward based field, an instant
reward too, that he also was going to have to learn.
And that's what means a therapist would do, is like,
we have to be patient. It's going to take time.
You're on the right course, still like almost as a therapist,
being like more of a guide that we're like on
the right track, and this is what's going to look
like and it's going to feel hard, and it's not
a magic spell where once you're acting like this, everyone's gonna.
Speaker 3: Be like Scrooge, I love you, thank you.
Speaker 1: That more closer to the recovery comparison is that people
are still going to have like a a bad assumption
about you, or not even assumption. You're still going to
have a bad reputation with some people because you've done shit.
You need to just sit with that, and that can't
be part of the equation of why you're doing what
you're doing now. Good over it of ego death that
accompanies this kind of work.
Speaker 2: Take one of those last break things that we tend
to do the last one of the season here and
move into final thoughts. So let's talk about final thoughts.
I think we all love this movie. So we can't
follow and follow our typical thing we've developed this particular
season of well who love this one the least, they'll
go first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I love the Muppets anything. I'm a
big muppet head. I love the Muffet babies growing up,
I love Muppets Christmas Carol. I wish there's more and
most Piggy in this one. I think that's my only critique. Yesh,
it's definitely like just as side character. I mean, it's
not very Muppet heavy this one. Actually, comparatively, it's more
a Christmas Carol with like Muppets filling out the outside.
Speaker 3: That's definitely true. That's definitely true. I love this movie.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna watch Christmas Carol, I like this one. Also,
the songs are bangers. I forget how much I know
all the songs until I'm listening and I'm like bopping
along with it.
Speaker 3: So it's an easy one to put on for kids too.
Speaker 1: Like, I think it is a a very all over
crowd pleaser, and I'll watch it a bajillion more times
after this. Yeah, I love this movie. I've watched this
movie since it came out in nineteen ninety two. My
siblings and I really have always enjoyed this movie. It's
something that we watch whenever we're together, if we happen
to be together on Christmas. It's definitely a movie that
gets watched. I know all the words, saw the songs,
I know all the dialogue to the film, and I'm
just gonna keep I already watched it. This is already
my second watch of the movie for the season. I
might watch it again after this. So I love this
movie and I'm gonna keep watching it at the bare minimum,
which is once a year.
Speaker 3: What's your favorite line from the movie, Hannah, since you
know them by heart?
Speaker 1: I mean probably the one that Ben put on the board,
which is light the lamp, not the rat, like the
lap not the rat, like the laugh not the rat,
and he pushes them to frozen water. I like when
he uses the rat to clean the window. I really
love when Peter gets really excited about the goose. That's
the part that I remember as a kid, that we
would rewatch the goose. You's so excited about it's silly.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a better answer to any question
than what's your favorite line for the movie? Like the
lamp not the rat? What line was better? What's more memorable?
I mean, there's plenty, but what was more Muppets Christmas
Caro nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love this movie. I've always loved this movie. I
also love the Muppets. I will watch anything Muppets. It's
just wholesome, good entertainment. And as an adult coming back
and watching this and catching a few of the jokes
that they like slipping for grown ups, you're like, ah, oh,
I see what you did there, And I like catching
those because the Muppets are a little slick with them.
It's usually Miss Piggy, and since there's so little of
her in this, yeah yeah, and more of the giant
that you know, this is a little harder to catch.
But I really enjoyed watching this movie. I showed it
to my kid and unfortunately she got scared a bit
by the Marley Brothers.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, all of those old fucks. Yeah, those those
miserable old bastards. Signe.
Speaker 2: I think that in the Ghost of Christmas Past got
her because my two year old has not been sleeping
and so getting her down was miserable. And instead of
being able to go upstairs last night when I watched
this and just put the baby back down for thirty
seconds and patter Eva got bored and started watching a
movie before me giving her the one like, hey kid,
A few spots in this movie can be a little scary,
so she was just watching some and ended up turning
it off and watching something else. I was putting the
baby down. But I enjoy this this movie a lot,
and it made me consider something I hadn't considered ever before,
which is in watching The Britishness and Michael Kinan of
realizing how it was that Alfred Penniworth came about. He
was actually Ebenezer Scrooge who tried to make his penance
by caring for rich people by caring for another poor
orphan kid that got left alone on Christmas, that kid
being Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: Fuck Bruce Wayne. I think you're so slick with it. Yeah,
of all the kids that need help in this world,
it's a billionaire child.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: He has no parents, guys, and then he provided gentle,
loving care and.
Speaker 3: He still grew up to dress in a fucking batsuit.
So you know, I'd be a kid can offer you
know any don't make me a Riddler apologist. I know
that's a new Batman movie.
Speaker 2: And on this podcast, on this day, if I can
make you an apologist for that riddler, I would be.
Speaker 3: A magician, that's true.
Speaker 2: But I think Christmas Carol is still a powerful story,
and I think we're kind of coming back around full
circle of needing to scare rich folks into behaving.
Speaker 3: I know, that's fucking right.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: When I was watching this, I was like, does anyone
like an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or any of
those fucks watch this movie and like any version of
this story and how do they receive it? Like, what
are they hearing? If they're watching it at all, what
are they hearing? Are they seeing themselves? Are they just
thinking this is a cute little Victorian.
Speaker 2: Story, probably probably associated from it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they're like Ebanezer seems like a cool guy.
I don't want to hang out with him. He doesn't
need to change. My other friends, my cohort, they're like Ebenezer,
but not me. Yeah I'm different. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I gave away five million dollars with my new wife
to charity.
Speaker 1: Yeah it doesn't matter that I'm going to be the
first trillionaire on planet Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even though for what Yeah to do what with?
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Well, on that note, we'll wrap up. Here are five
episode of twenty twenty five. Thank you all for joining us,
Thank you all for listening, Thank you all for rating
and reviewing and commenting on and all those kind of
things we see. All the comments you guys leave places,
we share them with each other. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: It's been a hard year.
Speaker 1: It's been a hard year for most people, especially if
you give a shit and you're paying attention, So you
appreciate everyone who is giving their resources and some capacity
to us, whether it's financially on Patreon or buying our
merch or if it's just for free, which is giving
us a little bit of your time, listening, downloading, telling
a friend, leaving a rating, leaving a review. We genuinely
very appreciate it. We're a podcast who pays for themselves.
You know.
Speaker 3: Right now we're in Ben's basement at a table.
Speaker 1: Sitting at a big table, a crappy table that has
folded on us before, you know, surrounded by his children's
play stuff because we're technically in their play basement area,
and we're big children, and we are big children, and
so we really appreciate you all. We hope everyone can
have a chill holiday with people that they love that
take care of them, and you take a care of
each other, and we will see you all in twenty
twenty six