How The Punisher Can Improve Your Emotional Health

It would seem that nothing about The Punisher is healthy. The core of the character is hatred -- not just anger or disgust towards criminals, but a combination of both: he hates that criminals exist, thinks they're subhuman, and takes actions to eradicate them. Clearly these thoughts and behaviors are immoral and unhealthy.

But what's not unhealthy is his emotional core: the actual, physical emotion of hatred itself, regardless of its source. Something that decent people struggle with is how we can advocate for empathetic perspectives and kind behaviors, while also occasionally feeling extremely destructive emotions. As a result, we may repress those emotions -- not only to others by not expressing them, but to ourselves by pretending we're above them and ignoring them. Ironically, this is similar to what we do as comic book fans when we say that Punisher is sick and that we prefer Superman and Spider-Man because of our moral stance. It's also what characters within the Marvel Universe do towards Punisher. They cast him out like he's their Shadow, the way we cast out emotions that we believe would make us immoral.

The key point to remember is that, while we should be in control of our thoughts and behaviors because they're conscious, our emotions are unconscious, and there are absolutely no invalid emotions. Emotions are almost like another sense: they tell us something about a stimulus we're perceiving and direct us towards thoughts and actions to take in response. Whether or not you submit to the recommended thoughts and actions is up to you, and that's where a decent person needs to differ from The Punisher. A decent person doesn't need to stop themselves from feeling hatred, they just need to avoid ever (1) assuming inaccurate thoughts about the things they hate or (2) acting on their feelings without thinking critically. Punisher fails on the thoughts and behavior part, which is why it's reasonable for Marvel characters to dislike him.

If you feel hatred towards someone -- a criminal, a stranger, or even someone you care about -- that doesn't mean you're a bad person. It means your nervous system is trying to tell you something and you need to listen -- not obey, but listen, and then think critically about why you're feeling it, because there's always an underlying reason for "unwarranted" hatred (it probably resides in your past or in ignorance). It's okay to feel hate; it's not okay to think hatefully or act hatefully.

We need to accept difficult emotions like hatred in order to address them and to feel integrated and healthy, so there is something healthy about reading Punisher stories specifically. It's uncommon to follow a protagonist driven by hate, rather than anger or vengeance, and it's cathartic to see a character accept a part of life that we tend to ignore. He's not a role model in his actions, but he can remind us about the uglier parts of ourselves that we want to reject, he can bring them up and engage them. From there, it's up to us to learn how to accept and address our Shadows without letting them drive us in bad directions.