The Hulk and Posttraumatic Growth

I was interviewed Recently by Christine Killmer, aka “Christine the Middle-Aged Fangirl” of Project FanCare. Project FanCare is a non-profit whose mission is to help people with mental illness learn how to use their pop-culture passions to help improve their mental health. As someone who incorporates fandom in the therapy room, it was an honor to be asked to talk about my work. I believe wholeheartedly in their motto, which is that fandom saves lives.

In the interview we highlighted the beloved character, Dr. Bruce Banner, or The Hulk. He’s one that I reference a lot when working with clients who struggle with impulse control, anger management, and internalized self-loathing. The Hulk, despite his threatening demeanor and reactive instinctual nature, is a superhero and protagonist in Marvel Comics. Someone may indeed look at him and assume he's a monster. That there’s no way he’s a hero. Banner thought the same of himself.

This character was the result of an experiment gone wrong. Attempting to replicate the “super-soldier” program, Banner exposes himself to gamma radiation. The end result was transformation mutation forming into an alter ego dubbed The Hulk. He is given super-human strength and durability in this form, but also lacks control, discipline, and experiences dissociation from self. Often Banner can’t remember what he has done when he is The Hulk. Quickly, he becomes afraid and hates this part of himself, and does all he can to suppress it. But as he attempts to distance himself more from The Hulk, this “shadow self” consumes him, and at one point, completely takes over him.

What Banner experiences as a result of the outcomes of his experiment is traumatic. Trauma is defined as experiencing severe psychological and physiology distress following a life-threatening event. The results of trauma physically and mentally change the survivor. The trauma Banner experiences cause him to question himself, living in fear and confusion. He suffers self-blame and shame for the actions of his alter ego. He tries to avoid emotional responses to suppress his reactivity. This obsessive desire to numb himself leads to irritability, hypervigilance, and destructive behaviors, common symptom responses of trauma. The more he tries to resist what has happened to him, the more he turns into a monster.

I use The Hulk in my practice often with military members suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. They see similarities in their reactive rage and desire to suppress their “shadow self.” We talk about the physical and mental changes as a result of Banner's experience. We process how he will never be able to be who he was before the trauma. We look at the efforts he goes through to hide this part of himself from the world, believing he is unlovable, undesirable, and having little to offer the world. At one point, he even runs away from his Avenger family, fearing he will be their demise.

And then, we look at the growth Banner makes. The changes he goes through. We watch him flourish.

I make those connections with military clients in treatment. I teach them the concept of integration. Integration is the process of uniting different things, or in this case, different parts of self. An outcome of trauma is the fragmentation and separation of parts of yourself. This is because our bodies and minds store trauma often in parts of our brain where higher functioning skills, such as communication, reasoning, and processing, are hard to access. That’s why when someone says it’s difficult to talk about trauma, it’s actually difficult.

Integration in therapy is utilized to help an individual integrate all parts of themselves, often through the use of mindfulness. Clients are asked to observe, without judgment, the various parts of themselves. This means understanding that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected. In trauma work, it also means observing the actual trauma event and the responses and results from it. This creates empathy for self, insight, understanding, and most importantly, trauma resilience.

In the final culmination of 10 years of movies for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we are introduced to Professor Hulk. Described by Banner himself as the unification of brains and brawn, he is the integration of both his parts. When working with military clients, we talk about the parts of themselves that they hide, fear, and ignore. We talk about the strong emotions of anger (even rage) and how these emotions have underlying feelings that trauma survivors often avoid. My work uses the framework that emotions have “motion” and when felt wholly and properly we are able to move through them.

I show clips of Professor Hulk to these clients. I show his ability to be caring, his ability to delicately work with intricate tools, to process, to reason, and to communicate. Eventually this complex hero is the one who (spoiler alert), is able to wield the power of The Infinity Gauntlet, the key to saving the universe. This would not have been possible if he were only Bruce Banner, as he would have been too weak. This would not have been possible if he was only The Hulk, as he would be mindless and uncontrollable. But as Professor Hulk, he is able to utilize the strengths of his brain and brawn to use the gauntlet. He is only able to do this because he gained meaning from his trauma which allowed him to actualize his purpose in life.

With these images and information, my clients and I come up with goals, methods, and skills to help them integrate themselves in context to their trauma story. We process the emotions and reactions that scare them and find ways that they can be productive. We focus on seeking safety, understanding emotional triggers, and living in non-judgment. We use The Hulk as an incredible example of posttraumatic growth.

What do you think of the use of The Hulk as an example of posttraumatic growth? Who are other pop culture examples? Let me know in the comments section below!

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