How Story Can Heal (Akiva Goldsman)

Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

Elise Loehnen

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Self-improvement, Education

4.8 • 900 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“I think what's interesting about healing, psychological healing, is there's always a narrative that helps. So sometimes when you go to therapy, and you tell a story, and in the story, you locate your despair, and it's a knot, and then with the therapist, you work through the knot, you feel better. And was all the pain really attendant to that knot? Or did you just kind of load up that knot with some of the despair that comes from being alive and then you kind of work through it and that story helps you live life better. And I think that's true also this idea of how we look at the different personality states and we can name them and we can give them ages and it's a story that helps us understand ourselves.” So says Akiva Goldsman, an Oscar, Golden Globe, and WGA-Award winning screenwriter whose credits include A Beautiful Mind, The Client, Batman Forever, A Time to Kill, Practical Magic, Cinderella Man, I Am Legend, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, Insurgent, and I, Robot. He’s on Pulling the Thread today, though, to talk about Apple TV+’s The Crowded Room, a psychological thriller starring Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried on which he was both the writer and the showrunner. So first, some warnings: Yes, there are spoilers, though in my opinion, nothing that will markedly change your experience of watching the show. In fact, knowing the back story made it easier for me to get through the first, very stressful episode. (It gets easier, and by episode three, I was riveted.) And also, a trigger warning: The Crowded Room and our conversation today explore childhood sexual abuse, which is also part of Akiva’s personal history. MORE FROM AKIVA GOLDSMAN: “The Crowded Room” on Apple TV+ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Elise Lunan host of Pulling the Thread. Today, I'm joined by the Oscar-winning screenwriter and showrunner Akiva Goldsman,
0:08.9	creator of the much-aclaimed show The Crowded Room, which comes to us on Apple TV Plus and stars, Tom Holland, and Amanda Safreed.
0:19.7	Canva's Magic Right can improve any dull piece of work.
0:23.4	Canva's Magic Right turns dismal diction into spellbinding sentences.
0:28.8	Canva's Magic Right sprinkles enchanting inscriptions into dull documents.
0:34.3	Canva's magic right turns dull drafts into salient soliloquies.
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0:47.3	Canva, design against dull. Hi, it's Elise Lunan host of Pulling the Thread. On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we're here. Pulling the thread is about big questions,
1:13.2	why we do what we do, how we can understand our own experiences within a larger spiritual and
1:18.1	historical context, the ways in which we might begin to understand ourselves and each other
1:22.8	better, and what's required to heal ourselves and our world. I'll be joined in conversation by luminaries and wise elders,
1:30.5	those who have laid tracks in their work and lives to help us bring meaning and understanding to a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming.
1:38.4	My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant tiny seeds of awareness
1:43.4	so that we might all collectively
1:45.5	learn and grow.
1:48.4	I think what's interesting about healing, psychological healing, is there's always a narrative.
1:55.5	And that narrative helps.
1:57.8	So sometimes when you go to therapy and you tell a story and in the story you locate
2:04.3	your despair and it's a knot and then with the therapist you work through the knot, you feel
2:10.6	better. And was all the pain really attendant to that knot? Or did you just kind of load up that knot with some of the
2:20.4	despair that comes from being alive? And you kind of work through it. And that story helps you live
2:27.3	life better. And I think that's true also, this idea of how we look at the different
	...

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