We had to wait a long time for this one! Once again, this is really a dream movie for psychotherapist chalk full of actual neuroscience terms. It's kid and adult friendly and we get to see our beloved Riley experience increase emotional range through puberty.
Some of the main themes are the complexities of mood states as puberty begins. Some highlights include seeing a "brain storm" and "brain freeze" in action. So cleverly done
However, there are silver linings and each feeling has a role to play in growing, learning, keeping us safe and being fully human. In the movie, each emotions actually had an important role to play in processsing her peer situations and environment.
The emotional brain AKA "headquarters" and the feelings take turns running the leader board and wait for the right moment to step in. In this movie, Riley has anxiety take Joy's place as the strong leadership role in headquarters. This represents what is is like during stressful times in our lives.
We can use this movie clinically as a way to help empower everyone to first identify who is "running headquarters" and then recognizing we have more control over this than we realize at times and we can switch who is in "charge". By the end of movie, all the feelings work together to help get things back on track. We can't help but love "Ennui" (bored but never boring) as he answers "Fine" to Riley's parents when asked how camp was.
P.S. Stay past the ending credits to find out the deep dark secret!
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