Hulk On The Couch | The Empire Blog

Hulk On The Couch

Posted on Monday June 9, 2008, 17:03 by Glen Ferris in Empire States

What would happen if The Incredible Hulk stopped stomping and smashing and sat down with a professional to talk about his anger management problems? In the interests of exploring just such a avenue of possibility, we indulged in a bit of role-play with therapy expert Jill Wootton.

Banner: Hello doctor, I wonder if you can help me: I keep turning into a big, green, angry monster!
Wootton: The first thing I’d like to do today, Bruce, is break down the factors that really make you angry. You might feel that the need to be loved and the need to be left alone is not being met, and that might fuel your anger.

Hulk: You’re charging how much an hour? GAAAAARGH! HULK SMASH!
Wootton: Er… Obviously you’ve got the gamma ray problem, so I’d like to send you to a naturopath who would look at the cellular structure of your body and see if we could get you to not react to the neurotransmitters that cause anger. When people get angry, there’s a massive chemical change in the body and that’s why some people feel as though they’re losing control, like going into a trance. We also need to make sure you’re eating properly and taking as much supportive medicine as possible – if people don’t eat properly, they are more likely to get angry because the body and the brain don’t work properly!

Hulk: Hulk no like medicine, puny pinkskin.
Wootton: [Edging behind a chair] Okay, well, in that case what I’d like to do is take you back to a time when you’ve managed to control your anger. Let’s do some visualisations and think about how your body feels different at those times. Then we can use a hypnotic technique in which we would try to overlay those positive memories on a time in the future when you feel like you’re losing control – the effect is like anchoring one negative emotional state and replacing it with a positive one.

Hulk: NO! Hulk want to SMASH!
Wootton: Umm… some psychological arenas do say that it’s good to get your anger out, but that theory flies in the face of everything we know about the chemical changes that happen in the body when people get angry. We’re not looking to get angry and channel it into a pillow or a brick wall; it should be something that we can change through psychological intervention and naturopathic intervention. Rather than channelling the anger, we don’t want it there – we just need to learn how to turn it around.

Hulk: It all began with Hulk’s mother…

Jill Wootton is Training Director for the Brighton-based company Uncommon Knowledge www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk