Media as a Mirror

When I was in grad school for counseling, I went to PAX South under the banner of Zelda Informer. I was covering pre-release footage and gameplay of Breath of the Wild at the time and was able to get a nice press pass. With this, I was also given the opportunity to check out panels and concerts I normally wouldn’t have. This is where I met Dr. Anthony Bean. I attended a panel of his about Roleplaying, Archetypes, and their relationship to therapy. Granted, that was not the name of the panel, but it has been a while. To say that this rocked my counseling brain would be an understatement. 

It all clicked with me in a way that I had never even considered before. It got me interested in Jungian psychology and I took a deep dive into it. This was a bit discouraged in my program, as Jung was not considered a viable theoretical model for a Christian counselor (a sentiment that I wholly disagree with, but that is for another day). I was already operating from a different theoretical framework from most of my peers - Gestalt theory, which seemed to click into place with the concepts put forth by the Jungian school of thought. 

What really caught my interest was the use of archetypes in a therapeutic setting. Not only do they answer humanity’s need to categorize, but they also help inform the individual on the deeper parts of themselves. At the same time, I view them like I do diagnoses: they are descriptive, not prescriptive. Archetypes and diagnoses are helpful for us as both individuals and clinicians as they package up collections of traits or symptoms respectively. That is to say, I view archetypes as a mirror: we look at them and can see ourselves in them. 

So where do archetypes come from? Well, myths, stories, and the like. One notable example is the monomyth, or “The Hero’s Journey.” The Hero is one of the many different archetypes and it is one of the easier to look for and understand. While most stories, especially grand tales or myths, follow the structure of The Hero’s Journey, said structure can often apply to our lives. The Hero’s Journey is one of the oldest structures for a story, dating all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. While it is definitely helpful to understand what The Hero’s Journey is, I believe that, for our purposes, it’s more important to understand the why. 

Why do we tell stories? To what end? Entertainment is surely a part of it, but not every story is entertaining. I believe that we tell stories to understand ourselves. A good story does not need to represent me and I don’t necessarily need to identify with the characters in it. Instead, we identify with elements from the stories we tell or even use them as things to aspire to. For example, my favorite movie is Into the Spider-Verse; while I am not represented by Miles, nor can I identify closely with him, I can identify with the themes and trials of the story. Themes such as imposter syndrome, expectations, and more are all evident throughout the story and those are all things that I connect with. His struggle is not my struggle, but they share similar concepts. From there, I want to see Miles succeed. I want to see him overcome these struggles and come out on top. How he does so and who he becomes because of these struggles is what makes him such a great character. 

The same can be said with any character in any of my favorite pieces of media; Simon from Gurren Lagann, Waver Velvet from Fate, the list goes on. Each of them has a specific trial to overcome and each individual can have their characteristics classified by their archetypes. Most of them go beyond The Hero, but that is always a good starting point. After all, we all want to be heroes in our own stories. We each have trials and tribulations and we want to persevere and come out on the other end like a hero. 

Back to that panel, it helped me understand the relationship between stories - the ones we tell and the ones we are told - with our internal archetypes and how we process them. In fact, this is a huge component of therapeutic DnD: what do the characters we create and play say about us at both the conscious and subconscious level? And, yes, they will always say something about you. Creation is a reflective act in that our creations come from us and say something about our person. What does your self-serious halfling rogue or goofy dragon bard say about you? Your personality will spill out from them, whether it be your conscious choices or your subconscious insecurities. 

But this goes beyond DnD. One of the examples Dr. Bean used at the panel was playstyle and what it says about the individual. Given the chance, does the player in Assassin’s Creed stick to stealth or choose to rush in guns-blazing? Do they prefer to be calculated and take their time or do they want to brute force things? What do you prioritize in Mario Kart? Speed, acceleration, handling? Maybe a healthy mix of all three?

Furthermore, what do the movies, shows, and books you engage with say about you? While most people are eclectic in the types of media they take in, there is usually a default that people fall back upon. There is a bevy of anime out there, but my comfort genre is the isekai (sent to another world) genre, so much so that several of my friends know that as a defining characteristic of my preferences. But what does it say about me? Well, maybe I like escapism, like escaping to another world. Maybe I like the idea of a hero that can overcome any obstacle (an odd staple of most isekais now)? There is plenty I can dive into and reflect on so that I may better understand myself.

Media has always been in response to something. Very rarely will you see media predicate culture; instead, media reacts and mirrors the culture around it. Media can reinforce, challenge, or try to change the culture around it, but it does not create the culture. From the very beginning, stories were told as a response to the culture, giving idyllic heroes to aspire to or to explain and explore our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. We can even go as far back as (or even farther) the inception of the Greek gods and the mythos surrounding them to see what the culture of the time valued and aspired to. 

Stories play on our ethos, bringing us into the worlds they are describing by appealing to innate human desires and archetypes. They cannot, then, appeal to things that are not there. Media mirrors our archetypes; it does not set them. It reflects the values and desires of the time. More than that, though, it reflects the wants and needs of the individual. Jungian therapists will take a look at these archetypes and see what they say about the client. They can show things like emotional needs, physical needs, desires to be met for self-actualization, and more. 

The question this leaves us with is: what does the media that I enjoy say about me? If our media mirrors our own wants, needs, and desires, then what is it we currently want? What needs do we feel are addressed or even sated by the media we consume? Reflect on our own reflection, if you will. 

Breaking Free

Pounding at these prison walls inside my mind

Struggling to break free, but I realize I'm

Stuck here shackled by this insecurity that 

Tells me I can't do what you're expecting of me

“Geek Culture,” as some might call it, has become significantly more mainstream today than it was when I was a kid. It wasn’t ‘cool’ to wear a Triforce shirt or a Marvel hoodie and it was definitely something that got you (see: me) your fair share of bullying. Now, I walk down the street and see cars with anime stickers, guys with Demon Slayer shirts, and the like. Of course, I think there are still levels of social “acceptability” when it comes to being nerdy, but we’ve come a long way. It seems you can’t go anywhere now without seeing Marvel or Star Wars branded products being shoved in your face. 

I suppose it’s all well and good. I am not here to complain about things being mainstream or that kids don’t get made fun of as much for being nerdy – far from it. Rather, there still seems to be some divide on what is “too much.” Growing up as one of those kids, I was always ashamed of the things I like(d). I wasn’t into The Cowboys or The Rangers, which is heresy in Texas–I’m aware. Those were seen as socially acceptable hobbies or things to nerd out about. 

That’s not to say I was an island; there were definitely plenty of kids that liked the same things I did. However, it was kind of this unspoken rule that those kinds of things were not ‘cool.’ You were weird for liking those things. I don’t mean to generalize this as “everyone’s experience,” but I do know it was far more common than some would like to think. At the end of the day, though, we’ve come out on the other side. Kind of.

GRC was founded with a slew of ideas, one of which was being unabashedly myself and encouraging clients to be themselves as well (with the caveats of: it needs to be healthy and legal and not harmful to yourself or others). If you walk into my office, you see anime Displates, figurines, and even a Luigi’s Mansion First4Figurine on the front desk. I myself am almost a billboard for the things I like with tattoos from things like Zelda, Fate, and Shadow the Hedgehog.

It took me a while to get to the point where I was comfortable being myself, much less being okay with openly liking things like anime and video games. It’s difficult to be confident when you are always questioned for “why” you like something or being told “it’s childish.” One of the common warnings I got when starting up my office was that most adults wouldn’t want to sit in here or take me seriously because of the decorations–a warning which ended up both falling flat and falling on deaf ears. 

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes is as follows: “Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” Whether it be in everyday life or in the church, there is an expectation that once you become an adult, you are supposed to like ‘adult things,’ whatever those are. Video games, comic books, fiction books, certain types of music– these things are not usually seen as ‘adult’ in nature. What is an adult, though, but a grown-up kid? Our interests may change, but they do not simply vanish. I love a good fantasy novel now just as much, if not more, as when I was a child. 

I think most people want authenticity, especially in this day and age. It’s very easy to sterilize yourself and put on a business suit both literally and metaphorically. I can throw on a mask and act like I am a self-serious therapist who has no personality or thoughts other than psychology, but I find that to be far too fake. At the risk of bragging, I have gotten a lot of compliments on both my office and on my genuineness and openness. I think this is due to the human need to know and be known; we desire connection with each other and true connection at that. When you walk into my office, there is no mistake: this is me. 

That is not to say that I don’t have that voice in the back of my head telling me that this is all silly and stupid. That I should have a sterile and traditionally professional office; that I should dress in slacks and a suit and put up the front of the businessman who has it all together. But that would be acting out of a place of insecurity. As one of my favorite songs cries out: “My life's too precious to live shackled by insecurity.” Those words resonate with me so deeply; I could spend my time worrying about what people think of me. Do they judge me because of my nerdiness? Maybe they don’t want anything to do with me because I’m a Christian? Maybe they dislike Reformed guys? If the answer to any or all of that is ‘yes,’ then so be it. A client should be with a therapist they can connect with and feel comfortable with. If they are turned off by the (very cool) posters and figurines, then that’s fine. We weren’t a good fit. 

Fortunately, I have yet to have that happen. Because, here’s the thing: I know I’m a damn good therapist who was trained by a damn good supervisor. My love of Zelda or lack of love of The Cowboys has no bearing on my ability to be a therapist. My office isn’t just a reflection of me, though. I wanted to build a place that feels safe and comfortable. I want it to be disarming. You aren’t being flashed by fluorescent lights or fancy art pieces about Freud’s view on the self. You come into some soft lighting and a Pac-Man machine.

And if Pac-Man isn’t your thing, don’t worry: I have other games on there, too. 

My point in writing this isn’t just to toot my own horn, either. I was talking to a good friend the other night and she hit me with this line: “Be the weird one and you'll be surprised how many other people are suddenly slightly weirder too in my experience [sic].” More than that, when you’re open with who you are, so are other people. My clients understand that they can be themselves because I am myself. There is no judgment in an open environment where everything is laid bare. The more open you are with yourself, the more open you can be with others, and that fosters an environment where people can feel free to be themselves without risk of toxic shame or embarrassment.

We have a lot of voices telling us who we should be and what we should like. Even in things like geek culture, there are loud voices saying that you can’t like something because of “this reason” or “that reason.” I am me; all of me, even the weird parts or the parts that people might think are a bit eccentric or weird. I’m not going to hide my character just because it might differ from what people think is ‘cool’ or ‘normal.’ 

Again, this isn't a free license to just do whatever you want. There are definitely some libertarian restrictions, like I previously mentioned. At the end of the day, I think this goes back to one of my favorite concepts in psychology: self-actualization. Put simply, self-actualization is the human desire to become the best version of ourselves we can be; healthy, happy, etc. We can’t move forward with a millstone called “insecurity” around our necks. I decided back in college that I won’t drag that rock any further. I want to become the best version of myself, that includes my nerdiness, my faith, my psychology– my everything. I think that is a natural human desire and one of our most important needs. 

It’s exhausting to constantly try to balance the unrealistic expectations of others. I’m too old and tired to care if someone thinks my Shadow the Hedgehog shirt is weird or geeky (it’s actually super comfortable - 95% cotton and 5% spandex!). I like me. My wife likes me. My friends and family like me. My clients like me (I hope). And I think that’s enough. 

And now I'm breaking free

I'm through with you and everybody else telling me

Who I'm meant to be

I'm taking back control

The world ends with me

With the Unbridled Optimism of a Drill

(Trigger Warnings: Suicide)
I can say with full confidence that no piece of media has affected me and the trajectory of my life quite like Gurren Lagann has. I can fully acknowledge its flaws, but it will always remain my favorite anime– my favorite piece of media. Since the movies are coming to theaters this week and next week, I wanted to reflect on what Gurren Lagann means to me. This may lack the more structured approach that past and future posts will contain, but this is something I want to talk about.

“Libera me” from Hell

My history with mental illness is a bit of a rocky one. My depression first started to show itself in middle school. I remember a friend telling me that no one wanted to be around me because of how depressing I was. I get it. I wasn’t always fun to be around because I was constantly being dragged down by my mental state. Moreover, I can’t blame a sixth grader for not wanting to be around such a downer. The fact that I was in sixth grade didn’t help things, either, since I did not really know what was going on. I was just depressed.

This only got worse as I went into Junior High. I’ll spare you the gritty details of what happened to instigate it, but I ended up trying to take my own life. As I always say: “Obviously, I failed.” But I can’t say I was ever really the same after that. I retreated into myself and kept my feelings to myself. Sure, I had friends, but I would never let them see that side of me.

July 28, 2008. Sci-Fi had a programming block called “Ani-Monday” that brought a lot of anime to the US. I remember watching Rave Master (does not hold up) and Mobile Suit Gundam 00, but the show that really caught me was Gurren Lagann. Aside from the 4Kids block on Sunday mornings, this was the first time I was introduced to what anime was and what it could really be. I was hooked by Gurren Lagann; from the first episode to the ending, I watched it every Monday. I laughed and cried and was gripped throughout.

Just two months earlier, I had tried to kill myself. I was constantly paralyzed by my depression and anxiety and I really had no one or nowhere to go to with it. The church was definitely no help in this regard, and I did not want to word my parents, so I dove into this show. And let me tell you: I fully believe it saved my life.

“This is the story of a man who has yet to realize his destiny.”

I saw myself in the character of Simon. A scared boy thrust into a world that was openly hostile to him. He was unsure of himself and was constantly paralyzed by fear. As the show goes on, there comes a point where this paralysis and anxiety boils over. He locks himself in a room and refuses to come out and help. He is looked down upon by his friends and teammates due to this, which only further drags him down into his hopeless spiral.

As he eventually comes out of his depressive spell, he finds himself. He finds a purpose and a goal. He reaches towards it and lets nothing stop him. This theme is carried through the end of the show– pushing forward and pushing past everything that would hold him back. That is what a drill does: it pushes through and past the dirt, tossing it behind itself as it digs ever forward. Simon’s transformation from a scared boy into a confident and self-assured man inspired me. Yuri Lownethal’s performance as Simon elevated the heartbreak and subsequent overcoming of his difficulties and resonated with me on a level that few performances have.

On my left arm is a tattoo with a drill and the words “GRIT THOSE TEETH” emblazoned on it. This is repeated three times throughout the show, all while the receiving characters are experiencing bouts of extreme anxiety (followed by a swift punch to the face). It’s a constant reminder to me, even when I’m frozen by panic and anxiety, to grit my teeth and press forward.

Ore wo ore-tachi wo dare da to omotte yagaru?

The concept of “manliness” is a difficult one to accurately nail down. We all have different ideas of what makes a man, mostly due to our upbringings, but also due to society. I want you to think about how you would define manliness; usually, the picture we have is stoic and self-assured. A “man” is someone who puts forward the literal definition of unwavering strength in the face of adversity; no doubts and no anxieties.

Kamina deconstructs this idea. He has his doubts and anxieties. He conveys these to Yoko when talking about Simon. He talks about how Simon inspires him to move forward; how when he struggles to continue on, he looks towards his ‘younger brother’ to give him the push he needs. He does not hide his emotions, but he does not let them control him, either. The image of this man, someone who is fearful, but tempers his fear with bravery and emotional strength to prevent it from overcoming him, colors the entire show. His spirit is ever-present, no matter the scene or situation.

When doing my Therapeutic Dungeon Master course, we were given an assignment to construct a few different characters based on personality concepts. One of those was a “modeled” character; this was someone who embodied the qualities we wished to have. They were essentially our ideal personality displayed in media of some sort. They had qualities we wished to embody and we could point to them and say “that is who I want to be.” My instructor pointed to Indiana Jones in Raiders; I pointed to Kamina in Gurren Lagann.

Regardless of the circumstances, Kamina chooses to see past what is possible and try to do the impossible. “Go beyond the impossible & kick reason to the curb! That's how Team Gurren rolls!” Even if it doesn’t make sense, even if it seems impossible, Kamina aims for the heavens and doesn’t settle for the atmosphere. That is who I wanted– want to be. Someone who aims for the sky.

That’s what I did with this business. It didn’t really make sense from a societal point of view, much less a “manly” point of view. I left a stable therapist job for a stable(ish) company with a stable pay only to start my own business from scratch. It seemed impossible. In reality, it still feels that way. It feels like I am currently doing something impossible. That’s why my logo is what it is. My logo, created by my father, has a drill for a background. Like a drill, I move forward towards the impossible heavens, pushing the possible to the side as if it was dirt.

That’s not to say I reject reality and refuse to look at what’s possible. Realistically, I know what my restrictions are. But I push forward anyway. I want to do the impossible. I want to make the improbable probable.

Greater Concepts: The Shadow

It can be daunting to truly be introspective, both with ourselves and others. To that end, as Jung put it, we put up a Persona to deal with the social world around us. A Persona is essentially a mask that we use to hide the deeper parts of ourselves in order to handle different situations. As negative as this sounds, it is natural. Think of Personas like different outfits. We wear different outfits for different occasions and the same is true for the masks we wear each day.

The Persona, then, is a way to hide ourselves—our true selves. Whether it’s just the private self that we do not wish to put on public display or it’s something more negative. Along with the concept of the Persona, Jung mentioned a few other archetypes that are connected to the Self; the Self being the culmination of the conscious and unconscious of an individual. It’s that pesky unconscious that I want to talk about today.

The Shadow is a part of that unconscious. It represents the negative aspects of ourselves that we do not wish to show to others: weaknesses, shortcomings, failures, vices, instinct, etc. Of course we don’t want those things out in the open, so it’s natural for us to hide them. To clarify, I am not arguing that these things should be out in the open, either. Especially the more harmful aspects.

Most people would agree that they do not show these aspects of themselves. And that’s good. The issue, I believe (and Jung would back me up here), is when it comes to the denial of the Shadow. I believe there are two types of denial: one is positive and the other is detrimental.

Positive Denial

There are obviously certain things we should not say or do. We should not act on our Shadow’s whims as they are neither positive for us nor for the world we live in. However, I hesitate to call the Shadow evil. It is, after all, just a conceptual way of viewing the personality. For some, it may be comprised of negatives, but for others, it may be comprised of things that are simply unacceptable in the society in which they live. Positive denial, then, would be a form of the Persona. Perhaps it would be better to say that this is a “refrain.” Rather than denying, we are refraining from doing something that goes against our morals, values, or societal norms.

Negative Denial

This is where we run into an issue. It is common for humans to look for the good in not only others, but themselves. No one wants to believe that they are evil or capable of evil (just as some will deny the concept of a ‘sin nature.’) We deny the possibility of the Shadow existing in ourselves to the extent that we fully identify with our Persona. The result, as Jung put it, “is that [people] become identical with their personas—the professor with his textbook, the tenor with his voice." (C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London 1983) p. 416). But we are not only our Personas. To put it another way, I am not only a therapist. That is one of my Personas, yes, but it is not all I am. To make that my entire identity would be a denial of every other aspect of myself.

The result is a flawed self and a lack of understanding about who we really are. Personas fade and change. I used to be a Home Theater Specialist at Best Buy; that was my Persona while I was there, but I no longer work there and, thus, that Persona has faded. When we fully identify as these mutable identifiers, we leave ourselves at risk of losing our identity when the Persona inevitably fails or fades.

So what do we do, then? If we can’t hide forever, then what is our other option?

I Will Face Myself

I want to take a break from the jargon and pondering for a moment in order to look at an example. If you know anything about me, you know that I am a rather big Persona (the game series) fan. While I think the Persona 3 and Persona 5 are fantastic, Persona 4 is far more applicable here as it has the fullest integration of the concept of Shadow Work.

In Persona 4, each of the main characters must contend with their own Shadow (in a very literal sense) in order to survive. In each instance, we see that the denial (see: negative denial) of this aspect of the self leads to negative consequences. Here’s an example from very early on in the game. (Language Warning)

Allow me a short recap, if you will. Yosuke is faced with his Shadow, a version of himself that embodies his true, negative feelings about himself, the world, and even the situation he is in. In denying this aspect of himself, his Shadow goes out of control. It is only after accepting that this is a part of himself (after a typical Persona RPG battle) that it calms down. He comes to terms with the fact that these are his actual, hidden feelings. It is only through accepting them that he is able to defeat them.

We, too, must do the same thing with our Shadows… minus the boss battle. Shadow Work is the process of integrating the shadow into the self; it is the understanding that, yes, this part of us that we hate and want to hide, is indeed a part of us. It is only through that recognition that we may begin to work on it. After all, the first step is admitting that there is a problem. If the alcoholic does not admit that he has a problem, then he will have no impetus to change. If he does admit the problem—if he does recognize his Shadow as a part of himself—he can then begin to work on himself in whatever form that takes.

We need to be able to look into ourselves and accept both the good and the bad. Even with that, though, it is important to understand that we are far more than the sum of our parts.

I Am… All of Me

One of my favorite characters in all of fiction is Shadow the Hedgehog. From his introduction in Sonic Adventure 2 (my favorite game of all time) to his most recent incarnation in Netflix’s Sonic Prime, I fully believe he is one of the most interesting and most developed characters in the Sonic series. In SA2, we see his internal conflict between his nature vs. nurture, whether to save the Earth or destroy it. In Shadow the Hedgehog, we see several different aspects of his character.

The core conceit of Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) is that there are different branching narrative paths that your actions are supposed to directly lead to with absolutely no gameplay issues whatsoever. The paths range from True Dark (Evil) to True Hero (Good). Interestingly enough, as bad as the game is, from a narrative standpoint, each of these endings is in line with who Shadow is as a character in both this game and the previously established material. Upon completion of the different endings, the True Story is unlocked.

Interestingly enough, aside from the comically evil endings, most of the endings could lead to this specific ending, whether good or bad. The True Ending is definitely a “good” ending in that Shadow’s actions are heroic, but it is more than just “good” or “bad.” The answer to the question of “Is Shadow good or bad?” is: “yes.”

Still with me? If you are, awesome. Pat yourself on the back for reading my Shadow the Hedgehog appreciation section. Now, the purpose behind all of that: good or bad, each of the endings is in line with his established characters. This means that they are all a part of him— the capacity for good and the capacity for evil. However, that is not how the game ends. It does not end with him being either good or evil. Instead, it ends with a culmination of who he is.

For those of you who rock Gestalt psychology like I do, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. Shadow, in his titular game, is more than the sum of each ending. The True Ending is the “sum” of the “parts,” but it is also greater than that.

Beneath the Mask

All of this is to say: you, too, are greater than the sum of your parts. Even with the Shadow and Persona, as well as the other aspects of the self, you are more than them. For that reason, the Shadow is not something to fear. We all have one and once we recognize that, we can finally start to work on it. To improve. Don’t be afraid of Shadow Work. A good therapist won’t judge you and, instead, help you work on integration and resolution. And if you’re looking for one, I happen to know a great one.