\u201cJust tell me what to do,\u201d Linda (played by Rose Byrne) says to her therapist (played by Conan O\u2019Brien). Linda\u2019s voice shakes with exhaustion\u2014as it does throughout the Oscar-nominated film, If I Had Legs I\u2019d Kick You.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you want me to tell you what to do,\u201d her therapist replies, also exasperated. His tone suggests he\u2019s irritated that she even asked. <\/p>\n
Linda is also a therapist. And the parent of a young child who has complicated medical needs. <\/p>\n
In addition, Linda\u2019s 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\u2019s also overwhelmed by parenting<\/a> (going so far as to bring her infant to work, burdening Linda to look after them both). <\/p>\n The only support Linda receives for her clinical work is the weekly hour she gets with her own therapist, who couldn\u2019t seem to care less. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cTonight I want you to get a good night\u2019s sleep,\u201d her therapist says, after Linda runs through the exhaustive list of responsibilities she is struggling (and failing) to keep up with. O\u2019Brien delivers this line like he\u2019s given her this instruction a million times before, and he\u2019s over it.<\/p>\n \u201che\u2019she\u2019sO\u2019Brien\u201dnight\u2019s\u201ccouldn\u2019twho\u2019sLinda\u2019she\u2019s\u201ddon\u2019t\u201cI\u2019dLinda\u2019sO\u2019Brien\u201d\u201cSo would I!\u201d Linda fires back, \u201cBut I\u2019m asking you a thing. An actual thing!\u201d<\/p>\n Byrne\u2019s desperation as Linda burns hotter. And as she continues to plead for her therapist\u2019s recognition of her dilemma\u2014including the impossible expectations other people are putting on her as a mother\u2014O\u2019Brien doubles down like a burned-out parent whose rebellious child refuses to just keep quiet and go to sleep. <\/p>\n \u201cThat means there\u2019s no alcohol<\/a>,\u201d he continues, admonishingly, as if Linda\u2019s words hold no importance. \u201cNo drugs\u2026\u201d You can hear O\u2019Brien wagging a finger at her with his voice as he speaks.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you even listening to me?\u201d Byrne cries out. \u201cCan you hear me?!\u201d<\/p>\n Linda knows she needs a good night\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n And even just a smidge of compassionate recognition from her therapist of the outsized weight that\u2019s been placed on her might help her to get there.<\/p>\n Recognition vs. Regulation<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n Regulation is the process by which our nervous system<\/a> keeps our emotional, physiological, and attentional states of being within a tolerable and functional range. <\/p>\n When we\u2019re regulated (e.g., when we\u2019ve 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. <\/p>\n When we\u2019re regulated, we feel capable of collaborating with other people. We can creatively navigate obstacles between them and us.<\/p>\n In short, regulation allows us to ask the other person to recognize us (\u201cExcuse me, you\u2019re stepping on my foot\u201d), rather than to demand that they regulate us (\u201cGet off me!\u201d).<\/p>\n Recognition, on the other hand, is an active, ongoing relational process of making efforts to see, hear, validate, and appreciate another person. <\/p>\n 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\u2019s presence. <\/p>\n In order to recognize another person effectively, we need to take the necessary time and space to regulate ourselves. <\/p>\n Beebe\u2019s Babies<\/p>\n Psychologist Beatrice Beebe\u2019s decades-long studies on implicit communication between parents and infants beautifully illustrate the generative process of regulation and recognition in human relationships.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> (Beebe & Steele, 2013).<\/p>\n Many times, as the parent watches the recording, they observe the baby turn away from them\u2014an action Beebe calls \u201cdodging\u201d<\/a> (Beebe & Steele, 2013). The parent will typically worry at these times: e.g., \u201cWhy is she so upset?\u201d; \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with her?\u201d; \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with me?\u201d<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, shame<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n In other words, co-regulation is a necessary developmental step toward self-regulation<\/a>. As child psychologist Mona Delahooke says: \u201cSelf-regulation does not come from a book, a kit, or a sticker chart. It comes from countless interactions with calm, loving caregivers\u201d (Delahooke, 2022).<\/p>\n The Scene Work of Relationships<\/p>\n Understanding the difference between asking for recognition (\u201cSorry, I\u2019ll be out of your way in just a second. I just need to tie my shoe.\u201d) and demanding regulation (\u201cGo f— yourself!\u201d) can help us to identify what we actually want or need from other people. And what they actually want or need from us. <\/p>\n When we\u2019re regulated, we can effectively ask our friends or family to recognize us: e.g., \u201cIt 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.\u201d As opposed to commanding them to regulate us: \u201cGet me that one-of-a-kind pair of jeans I asked for or else!\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, if Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s therapist character could regulate himself (calm his nervous system from the stress<\/a> of his client\u2019s needs), he could offer Linda recognition instead of judgment. He could sound like he means it when he says, \u201cI want you to get a good night\u2019s sleep.\u201d 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. <\/p>\n 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<\/a>). And conversely, being able to recognize emotional states in other people can decrease the emotional impact of negative relational experiences (Somner & Schlegel, 2024<\/a>).<\/p>\n Genuine recognition from another person can feel like being \u201cheld\u201d by a parent until we can put ourselves to sleep. If I Had Legs I\u2019d Kick You ultimately shows us, very movingly, what this kind of recognition might look like. And it\u2019s worth enduring the slings and arrows of Linda\u2019s outrageous fortune to get a glimpse of it.<\/p>\n Copyright Mark O\u2019Connell, LCSW-R<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cJust tell me what to do,\u201d Linda (played by Rose Byrne) says to her therapist (played by Conan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-461270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}