A Therapist's Psychoanalysis of Squid Game Characters: Addiction, Trauma, and Attachment

This podcast episode offers a psychoanalytic exploration of key characters from the Netflix series 'Squid Game,' framed as an entertaining yet insightful exercise rather than a formal diagnostic process. The host, a mental health professional, emphasizes the inherent irresponsibility of diagnosing fictional characters and the exaggerated nature of mental health portrayals in media, while also highlighting the value of such portrayals in destigmatizing mental illness and fostering identification. The core of the discussion involves hypothesizing various psychological conditions for characters, including gambling addiction, attachment disorder, and complex PTSD, using their on-screen behaviors and backstories as illustrative examples.\n\nThe analysis begins with Gihon, the protagonist, who is diagnosed with a gambling addiction. The host details Gihon's impulsive behaviors, such as stealing from his mother and prioritizing short-term gains over long-term stability, even after winning the game's immense prize. This character serves to illustrate concepts like impulsivity, future discounting, and the often-misunderstood nature of addiction as a disease rather than a moral failing. The episode also touches on the devastating impact of parental addiction on children, as seen through Gihon's daughter's resigned acceptance of his unreliability, and stresses that addiction exists on a spectrum, encouraging anyone relating to these traits to seek professional help.\n\nNext, the episode delves into Say Bjork, hypothesizing an attachment disorder stemming from early life trauma, likely from escaping North Korea. Her character exemplifies distrust, emotional volatility, and difficulty forming connections, which are presented as common manifestations of disordered attachment. The host explains attachment theory, emphasizing the role of emotional mirroring in childhood development and how its absence can lead to a worldview where the world is perceived as an unsafe, "PVP zone," hindering the ability to trust others and form authentic relationships. This section underscores how early trauma can manifest in diverse ways beyond traditional PTSD.\n\nFinally, the analysis covers Jion, suggesting a diagnosis of PTSD or Complex PTSD (CPTSD) due to her history of repeated trauma, including an abusive, hyper-religious father. Jion's dissociative tendencies, feelings of emptiness and worthlessness, avoidance of relationships, and specific triggers (like religious references) are presented as classic symptoms of complex trauma. The host describes trauma as the "great chameleon of psychiatry," capable of masquerading as various other conditions, and discusses how a damaged internal sense of self-worth can impede a person's ability to have goals, purpose, or meaningful relationships. The episode concludes by examining the complex, often challenging, relationships that form between traumatized individuals, as exemplified by the bond between Say Bjork and Jion, noting that while such connections can offer a sense of belonging, they often face significant hurdles due to both individuals' underlying issues.

"to actually obtain a diagnosis is an in-depth and like careful process."

"when popular media like portrays mental illness I think it can actually be useful because it illustrates like certain points and helps people like understand or maybe even identify with some of the characters."

"the diagnosis here is absolutely like gambling addiction."

"The brains of people with behavioral addictions tend to be like more impulsive... and they also have difficulty um sort of planning for the future and they tend to choose short-term gain over like long-term gain."

"for many years addiction was kind of viewed as like uh you know a moral deficiency or like it's their fault and people can just get up and like just stop drinking or just stop gambling bro."

"people with addictions aren't bad people they're just they're normal people who have these kinds of addictions."

"traumatic experiences or emotional abuse or things like that can manifest later in life in a variety of different ways so for some people it manifests as PTSD but I think say Bjork is like a good example of what seems to me like attachment issues."

"I think about trauma as the great chameleon of psychiatry so it can look like depression it can look like bipolar disorder it can look like just feeling afk or being empty."

"people with trauma feel so worthless on the inside that it feels like they don't have anyone because they can't actually connect to anyone because no one really understands them and they don't understand other people."

"I've seen this is so much especially in like residential trauma treatment where people who feel broken like I feel like half of a person and what happens is I tend to gravitate towards other people who are also like broken."