“Just tell me what to do,” Linda (played by Rose Byrne) says to her therapist (played by Conan O’Brien). Linda’s voice shakes with exhaustion—as it does throughout the Oscar-nominated film, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
“I don’t think you want me to tell you what to do,” her therapist replies, also exasperated. His tone suggests he’s irritated that she even asked.
Linda is also a therapist. And the parent of a young child who has complicated medical needs.
In addition, Linda’s husband and co-parent is away for work, leaving her to care for their daughter alone. In addition, Linda is caring for her clients, which includes a new mom who’s also overwhelmed by parenting (going so far as to bring her infant to work, burdening Linda to look after them both).
The only support Linda receives for her clinical work is the weekly hour she gets with her own therapist, who couldn’t seem to care less.
Oh. And the ceiling in her bedroom has collapsed, forcing Linda and her daughter to temporarily live in a motel while their home is repaired.
“Tonight I want you to get a good night’s sleep,” her therapist says, after Linda runs through the exhaustive list of responsibilities she is struggling (and failing) to keep up with. O’Brien delivers this line like he’s given her this instruction a million times before, and he’s over it.
“he’she’sO’Brien”night’s“couldn’twho’sLinda’she’s”don’t“I’dLinda’sO’Brien”“So would I!” Linda fires back, “But I’m asking you a thing. An actual thing!”
Byrne’s desperation as Linda burns hotter. And as she continues to plead for her therapist’s recognition of her dilemma—including the impossible expectations other people are putting on her as a mother—O’Brien doubles down like a burned-out parent whose rebellious child refuses to just keep quiet and go to sleep.
“That means there’s no alcohol,” he continues, admonishingly, as if Linda’s words hold no importance. “No drugs…” You can hear O’Brien wagging a finger at her with his voice as he speaks.
“Are you even listening to me?” Byrne cries out. “Can you hear me?!”
Linda knows she needs a good night’s sleep. But much like a screaming baby, she needs help to make that happen. She needs someone to hold her. Someone to regulate her, so she can learn to regulate herself. From there, she just might have enough bandwidth to help regulate her daughter and clients.
And even just a smidge of compassionate recognition from her therapist of the outsized weight that’s been placed on her might help her to get there.
Recognition vs. Regulation
So what does it mean to ask someone for recognition or for regulation? And how can knowing the difference help us to navigate scenes like the one between Linda and her therapist in our own lives?
Regulation is the process by which our nervous system keeps our emotional, physiological, and attentional states of being within a tolerable and functional range.
When we’re regulated (e.g., when we’ve had sufficient sleep, nourishment, and time to breathe), we are capable of engaging in relationships with other people with an open sense of possibility. We can see and be seen, and hear and be heard, without feeling threatened by forces outside of us.
When we’re regulated, we feel capable of collaborating with other people. We can creatively navigate obstacles between them and us.
In short, regulation allows us to ask the other person to recognize us (“Excuse me, you’re stepping on my foot”), rather than to demand that they regulate us (“Get off me!”).
Recognition, on the other hand, is an active, ongoing relational process of making efforts to see, hear, validate, and appreciate another person.
Recognition involves feeling understood, secure, and appreciated in a relationship. It creates emotional safety between two people and the feeling that they can both fully exist in one another’s presence.
In order to recognize another person effectively, we need to take the necessary time and space to regulate ourselves.
Beebe’s Babies
Psychologist Beatrice Beebe’s decades-long studies on implicit communication between parents and infants beautifully illustrate the generative process of regulation and recognition in human relationships.
Dr. Beebe videotapes parents playing with their babies and then shows the videos to the parents in slow motion (like the replay of a tennis match or like actors looking at their dailies after shooting a scene). This way, the parents can observe and appreciate the subtle exchanges between their babies and themselves, a process she calls microanalysis (Beebe & Steele, 2013).
Many times, as the parent watches the recording, they observe the baby turn away from them—an action Beebe calls “dodging” (Beebe & Steele, 2013). The parent will typically worry at these times: e.g., “Why is she so upset?”; “What’s wrong with her?”; “What’s wrong with me?”
But by getting to see the interplay from the outside, along with the guidance of Dr. Beebe, the parents learn to appreciate that the baby is often not rejecting them. She is simply taking the time and space she needs to regulate herself. And in order to support the baby in this process, the parent must practice regulating themselves, which includes breathing and processing complex feelings of guilt, shame, and blame, while feeling supported. This frees them up to recognize what their baby (their scene partner) needs in order to stay in a relationship with them.
In other words, co-regulation is a necessary developmental step toward self-regulation. As child psychologist Mona Delahooke says: “Self-regulation does not come from a book, a kit, or a sticker chart. It comes from countless interactions with calm, loving caregivers” (Delahooke, 2022).
The Scene Work of Relationships
Understanding the difference between asking for recognition (“Sorry, I’ll be out of your way in just a second. I just need to tie my shoe.”) and demanding regulation (“Go f— yourself!”) can help us to identify what we actually want or need from other people. And what they actually want or need from us.
When we’re regulated, we can effectively ask our friends or family to recognize us: e.g., “It would mean a lot to me if you got me a gift for my birthday. I felt neglected a lot as a child, and it would be healing to know that you hold me in mind.” As opposed to commanding them to regulate us: “Get me that one-of-a-kind pair of jeans I asked for or else!”
Similarly, if Conan O’Brien’s therapist character could regulate himself (calm his nervous system from the stress of his client’s needs), he could offer Linda recognition instead of judgment. He could sound like he means it when he says, “I want you to get a good night’s sleep.” He could sound like he cares about her. And that alone could possibly hold Linda, regulate her, and inspire her to regulate herself. Which would then prepare her to help regulate her daughter and her clients.
In fact, several recent studies indicate that receiving recognition from another person can reduce negative emotions and foster long-term mental and physical well-being (Zhu, Zhang, & Zhang, 2025). And conversely, being able to recognize emotional states in other people can decrease the emotional impact of negative relational experiences (Somner & Schlegel, 2024).
Genuine recognition from another person can feel like being “held” by a parent until we can put ourselves to sleep. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You ultimately shows us, very movingly, what this kind of recognition might look like. And it’s worth enduring the slings and arrows of Linda’s outrageous fortune to get a glimpse of it.
Copyright Mark O’Connell, LCSW-R