Riley’s destabilization is triggered by loss of everything familiar, preoccupied and misattuned parents, and looming adolescence. The biggest threat, however, is that Joy is planted too firmly at the helm, with Sadness practically banished.

Inside Out has been acclaimed for its attention to neuroscience, but there are also strong influences from contemporary psychoanalysis. The movie echoes pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s notion that “there is no baby without a mother and no mother without a baby.” It opens with newborn Riley’s first blurry glimpse of her parents, who exult in their baby. She is truly the gleam in her parents’ eye. Joy is not only a core emotion and an aspect of temperament, but a product of mirroring crucial to personality development.

Those of us who are therapists do not often encounter in our work clients whose earliest relationships result in Joy’s authentic governance. Yet we frequently see people who have long labored under the command of relentless good cheer. This, too, is the life of Riley. No wonder the other emotions are content to go along with the premise that Joy ought to be in charge: She sacrifices aspects of self to protect and please those she depends on.

Luckily, Riley is blessed with good-enough parents and optimal frustration: growth follows de-integration as split-off parts are integrated in an ongoing process of empathic failure and repair. Most important, Riley is allowed to mourn.

Inside Out has been lauded for its depiction of emotion, yet it is also a depiction of mania. And no wonder. Manic defenses ward off feelings of despair through constant activity, the fantasy of omnipotent control, and disavowal of sadness. Mania masquerades as happiness, but underneath lies the inability to feel sadness. This is Joy to a T.

It’s also a big aspect of American culture. Perhaps this explains why Inside Out has garnered such massive acclaim. The importance and integration of all emotions may be a given among therapists, yet the movie has been hailed as Revelation.

This may say more about us than Inside Out purports to say about the brain, emotions, memory, or personality development. But to the extent that the movie reaches a large audience about the role of affect and empathy, and the perils of happiness on command, it’s good to have Pixar at the controls.

*

If you saw Inside Out, how did you like it? What aspects did you identify with? Have you experienced the pull to be positive no matter what?