Psychoanalysis.  2025 Jan;36(1):14-18. 10.18529/psychoanal.2025.36.1.14.

A Better Way to Understand Children’s Minds: Lessons From “Inside Out”

• Bahn GH

• KMID: 2564784
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.18529/psychoanal.2025.36.1.14

Abstract

Discussing disruptive behavioral problems with the general public, children, and parents is one of the major tasks faced by medical specialists, particularly psychiatrists. Understanding children’s emotional problems is particularly challenging. Empathizing with them can be equally difficult. In this regard, movies such as “Inside Out” provide valuable tools for medical staff to communicate with the general population. The film is an animation that personifies basic emotions of joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust in the mind of a young girl, Riley, struggling to adapt to environmental changes, which subsequently leads to her deviant behavior, deci- sion-making, and actions. Other factors influencing emotions include memory and dream processing. These films can also be used as educational resources for medical students.

Keyword

Emotion; Dream; Inside Out; Behavior; Affect science; Neuropsychoanalysis; Development; Media; Medical education; Children