Spoiler alert! This post contains significant plot spoilers.
Movies can deliver complex messages in the form of allegory (a story that with a hidden, symbolic meaning). But I never expected Marvel’s Thunderbolts* to be a near-perfect representation of mental illness. Specifically, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), associated disorders, and how cognitive behavioral therapy helps someone recover. The movie anthropomorphizes (gives human form to) the elements we address (literally, they fight) in treatment. Finally, the movie shines a light on the fact that we all have our struggles and that it is OK.
So, let’s look at this masterpiece on a deeper level, some of the elements of exposure therapy that are represented in this movie, and how recovery is a team sport.
The Thunderbolts* is a collection of failed anti-heroes and focuses on Yelena, an ex-assassin. They are confronted with a mysterious ex-addict, Bob. He was given superpowers but holds immense darkness inside him, driven by memories of severe abuse and associated problems. When he was changed, his internal darkness destroyed everything. While this can figuratively be the case in mental illness, in this Marvel movie, it’s literal.
Some Basics to Start
PTSD and depression are highly co-occurring, as is substance misuse. And, psychosis has a strong relationship to trauma.
In simple terms, PTSD is like a phobia of a memory, so the person avoids the memory and things in their environment related to the memory. The problem is that the more you avoid the memory (and things), the more they haunt you, and life feels more terrifying. All of the symptoms of PTSD and complex PTSD can be explained through this paradigm. Over time, life gets smaller and leads to depression.
Stuff It Down
Bob describes this darkness inside him, the Void (later becoming the creature that consumes New York). He asks Yelena if she has ever had that experience, and she says she pushes it deep inside.
Avoidance: works in the short run, but in the long run, it maintains our problem.
Throughout the movie, we see avoidance at work. Avoidance makes sense. Yelena throws herself into work and drinks alcohol. In the moment, her pain goes away, but her light is dimmed. The pain spreads, and we find her at the beginning of the movie on top of a building, talking about what sounds like the ultimate avoidance: suicide.
But avoidance makes each character worse in the long run.
For Bob, he retreats into his mind and is trapped in the void (the symbol of depression) by his PTSD. Yelena finds him in a “safe place” in his mind, a comfortable attic. However, yelling begins underneath him, and the room shakes. A heart-wrenching representation of intrusive trauma memory. Bob seizes up and tells her (over the shouting below), “It will be over soon.” It’s the memory of Bob protecting his mother from domestic abuse and the consequences.
Bob says I stay here because this is the safest memory I’ve found.
The Only Way Out Is Through—Michael Kozak
The internet is flooded with treatises on why CBT cannot help problems with trauma. While these are well-meaning, it’s not true. I read those critiques and I think, “Yeah, that ain’t CBT.”
Thunderbolts* dramatized how CBT (my interpretation, revisiting of the trauma memory or imaginal exposure) works.
CONCEPT: Memories are haunting and terrifying, but they cannot cause us actual harm. Avoidance maintains the fear. In CBT, we relearn (in our bodies) that memories are safe through repeated imaginal revisiting.
In the movies, Yelena asks, if this is the safest spot you’ve found, let’s find the most dangerous. And they set off on a journey of revisiting memory after memory. He learns that he does not need to fear the memories, and he can file them away. None of the memories become good, happy memories, but he can face them.
Shame and Isolation
Each hero carries shame and starts the movie isolated. When the Void starts to take New York, Yelena steps in. They see her as giving up, leaving them alone.
But she is reaching out to help Bob; connection. We heal with others. Mental illness preys on our loneliness.
One by one, each hero enters the void believing in Yelena. Each of them fights through their memories to find Bob and Yelena. They needed the full family to fight.
Recovery is a beautiful, hard journey, and it is made lighter with the support of others. In these scenes, the team faces the memories together.
Chef’s kiss, highlighting shame: Many experience shameful memories of times during psychosis or substance misuse. For Bob, he becomes violent in a chicken suit while high on meth. It is funny but acknowledges how shame makes us avoid as much as fear. But as a family, they slay it.
Final Memory
When Bob tries to make something of himself, he is turned into a monster, causing an atrocity.
The nuance is captured. We can hide the worst, most shameful parts of ourselves and try to go it alone. With Bob’s new “skills” from the previous “sessions,” he attacks the monster alone, and the others are trapped far away.
Bob fails, and the Void taunts him. He becomes angry, and they visualize how this darkness can seep into us unknowingly. It takes an outside person to help see. Yelena breaks free and, with the team, pulls him away from it. And the memory is filed away.
The solution to the Void is not fighting the darkness with more darkness.
Connection, living his life, values, and love.
Healers Hurt
Yelena could represent many archetypes in this allegory of recovery.
To me, she represents the hurt healer. Yelena leads this group of heroes through the healing process, but many of us in the healing field are wounded healers in some way. She shows how we see ourselves in those we serve and how we need to be open with our supporters about our struggles and care for ourselves. So we do not end up in the Void.
Thank you, Marvel. I’m not certain you completely know how well you did.
Note: Due to the movie being new, I was unable to get exact quotes.
