Inside Out 2 ending explained: How new mental health research shaped finale

Film's consultant psychologists break down why we've been thinking about the mind all wrong

The tear-filled climax of Inside Out 2 is more than just another classic Pixar happy ending.

Warning: this article contains spoilers

As the emotions inside 13-year-old Riley’s mind embrace each other, they accept that they each play a valuable role in her life. According to the psychologists who consulted on the film, it’s a reflection of the latest scientific understanding of how the brain works and how people of all ages should be approaching their mental health.

Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California Berkeley who worked on the story, tells The National: “There’s new research that says it's not all about joy. We need all these emotions in a complex mixture.

“For people seeking happiness, you’re going to also need some anxiety, some stress and a little bit of envy. There needs to be an acceptance of emotion. Don’t condemn your emotions. Don’t go to pharmaceuticals right away. Just listen to them instead."

In the first film, released in 2015, audiences meet Riley at the age of 11, as well as the emotions who are guiding her through childhood, led by Joy, voiced by actress Amy Poehler.

The sequel picks up two years later, with Joy still at the helm of her mental control centre. Each day, Joy carefully curates which memories will be stored in Riley’s mind – prioritising happy moments and ejecting uncomfortable ones – helping form the "Sense of Self" that guides Riley’s actions.

But when the newly-teenage Riley finds herself in a state of crisis, a set of new emotions – Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui – take control, suppressing Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear and Disgust to the depths of her subconscious.

Anxiety ejects Riley’s Sense of Self to the back of her mind and begins creating her own, using only anxiety-led emotions. But to Anxiety’s shock, her new Sense of Self turns out to be harmful.

To save Riley, all nine emotions join forces to rescue all of the suppressed memories to form a more complex Sense of Self that embraces all aspects of her feelings.

According to Lisa Damour, clinical psychologist and bestselling author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, that is the key message of the film. While it’s largely beneficial that we’re in an era in which mental health discussions have been normalised, there is still a widespread misunderstanding that it’s healthy to only embrace positive feelings – which doesn’t help in the long run, she says.

“A lot of teenagers and a lot of parents are operating with this idea that you're only mentally healthy if you feel good,” says Damour. "And that is not how we've ever understood mental health.

“What is so important about this film is that it represents the reality that natural functioning involves a whole lot of emotions that are not particularly comfortable, but they are valuable. They are protective. They are growth-giving. And they all have a place in our lives and are not on their own grounds for concern."

The story arc of Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, is particularly important for conveying this message, Damour explains.

In the beginning, Anxiety is the film’s villain, guiding her to make morally questionable choices and abandon her loved ones for selfish pursuits. But as the film goes on, it becomes clear that the catastrophe that occurs inside Riley’s mind is Joy’s fault, too.

Joy stubbornly refuses to listen to Anxiety, which only makes Anxiety stronger. Only when the emotions begin to embrace what they each bring to the table does anxiety’s true value become clear.

“By the end, Anxiety is quite adorable, and that matches what we believe scientifically. Anxiety is a natural and helpful emotion that’s not all bad,” says Damour.

“The ending is perfect in terms of how we conceptualise it. When Anxiety begins catastrophising, they kindly ask her to go sit in her chair to calm down. Then, Anxiety reminds them that Riley has a Spanish test tomorrow, which is Anxiety serving its job to anticipate real threats to protect ourselves.

“Oftentimes, we only consider anxiety to be pathological, as if it’s only coming up with threats that aren’t real. Instead, we need to embrace anxiety as part of the team, as long as it’s kept in bounds."

Striking this balance is particularly important for teenage girls, who can often be incredibly hard on themselves, Damour explains.

“In my first conversation with the filmmakers in early 2020, we spoke about my book Untangled, about the adolescent development of girls," Damour adds. "I remember telling them that clinically, what we try to do is help these girls recognise their imperfections, while still seeing themselves as valuable and worthy of love.

“When I saw that final scene at the premiere, I started crying. I was like: "There it is! That’s the conversation we had!’”

Keltner, who consulted on the first film as well, also found the film’s ending to be particularly moving, especially because it reflected science that wasn’t as well understood when the original was made.

Keltner says: “I was crying, too. I was like: ‘I wish I had told my daughters that 10 years ago’. What a great lesson!”

But even as Inside Out 2 breaks new ground in its portrayal of accurate psychological science on screen, it is far from a complete portrait of how the brain works.

For story reasons, Keltner explains, the filmmakers could not accommodate the scientifically accurate number of emotions that exist in the mind, which is currently estimated at 25.

“For example, I kept pushing for Shame as a character, as it has such profound effects on the mind, but it was just too complicated,” Keltner explains. "They tried, but they couldn’t quite get it to work."

Both Keltner and Damour agree that further sequels could be helpful in expanding the public’s knowledge of the brain’s development at later points in life. In Keltner’s opinion, Inside Out 3 should be set in late adolescence.

“At 18 and 19 years old, the mind really starts expanding," he says. "You have new emotions, like awe, and you really start to orient yourself morally to the world. Emotions such as compassion, and then falling in love, obviously, also have a major effect."

In Damour’s view, the most important potential sequel would cover Riley becoming a mother herself, a development that also has a profound effect on a person’s psychology.

“I hope they make these sequels. I think it'd be an extraordinary series,” says Keltner.