Bat Therapy: Mental Health through the Lens of Comics and Film

Finally. You have left the sewer, and the people of New York City can learn to love you and your teenage mutant ninja turtle brothers. And the timing is perfect because you are protecting them from Super Fly! But then you find out that they think you are a monster, attacking the city with Super Fly. There is a lot you are feeling in this moment – it is the perfect time for some mindfulness.

When you’re a teenager, it is only natural to care about what other people think – you want to fit in and find your people. This is especially true if you happen to be a mutant ninja turtle going through puberty. But what do you do when you care so much about being liked that you end up getting in your own way?

You are Cassandra Cain and, after escaping your father, you are living in a Gotham library. You never learned to speak, so you communicate with people through their body language. It speaks to you. You take a moment away from worrying about your father’s assassins to sit and watch the people in the library so that you can connect with them through their body language, their facial expressions, and their movements.

Cassandra Cain doesn’t have many storylines of her own, but she is a very compelling character in the Bat Family. Raised to kill instead of to speak, she has a quirky way to life that you can’t help but love and respect. We talk about Cassandra’s unique communication style and how, like Barbara Gordon, a therapist would try to adjust their approach in order to meet Cassandra where she is at.

Remus Lupin misses the simpler times before he was a werewolf and when all the Marauders were alive. He uses the Memory Extraction spell to immerse himself in a memory from being in school with his friends. He looks into the Pensieve and allows himself to fully experience what that time was like, noticing how it feels to cherish and to mourn those memories.

The only reason you are considering this insipid activity is because you respect Alfred, despite his obsession with you “missing out on childhood”. That, and you already tried to go into the Batcave, and you’ve been locked out. So here you are at the playground, getting ready to see what is so special about the swing set, using mindfulness to try and overcome your belief that this will be an utter waste of time.

You take 11-year-olds, divide them into different teams, force them to compete for points, and then you watch them fight. Eventually, you bring them back together through a common enemy (an enemy that is probably more appropriate for the adults to handle…). Are we talking about Harry Potter or a social psychology experiment from the 1950s? Listen in to find out.

We discuss the animated films: Son of Batman, Batman vs Robin, Bad Blood, Justice League vs Teen Titans. Get a glimpse of what 10-year-old Bruce Wayne would have looked like if he grew up being trained to lead the League of Shadows. We explore Damian’s difficulty befriending others and how, if looked at from a certain angle, his abrasiveness can actually be an endearing trait…sometimes.

Sometimes, if we want to do something really important to us, then we have to be willing to experience something unpleasant. If Clark wants to talk to his crush, Lana, then he has to be willing to feel really sick because she wears a kryptonite necklace. So we practice being Clark and using mindfulness so that he can talk to Lana despite the kryptonite.

Smallville is a lot like social media: pretty on the outside with a lot going on out of view. We explore if Clark’s crush on Lana Lang is caused by anticipatory nausea / anxiety about her kryptonite necklace. And we discuss when might be the best time in someone’s life to get superpowers based on what we know about brain development and causes of disability.