Born Made Men: The Inner Lives of Goodfellas

What if Goodfellas wasn’t just a mob movie, but a clinical case study? In this episode of PrecisionCycle, Enrique dissects the psychological blueprints behind Henry Hill, Jimmy Conway, Tommy DeVito, and Karen Hill—without moralizing, sensationalizing, or flinching. From dissociation and narcissistic rage to trauma bonding and survival adaptation, this is mob life decoded through a psychodynamic lens.

Learn why Goodfellas speaks to our deepest instincts about power, abandonment, and the American illusion of freedom.

And if you're tired of talk therapy and ready to actually map your defense mechanisms, stick around for the call to action. elevate.epo

Transcript

Born Made Men: The Inner Lives of Goodfellas
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[00:00:00] So it was 1991 and I remember going to the warehouse in Eagle Rock after school on Fridays I would check out what was available to rent.

One day I rented, Goodfellas, brought it home and watched it, it essentially became one of the top five films that I've loved in my life. this was the first exposure I've ever had to the mafia, to the world of the mob.

And obviously the violence and the family dynamics and all the things that I was seeing on the screen were very novel to me, which was why I was drawn to it. But as I continued to rewatch it, as I went on through my life, I came to see it not so much as a work of art that it is, I also came to see it as the indictment of.

trauma and a modern trauma story that highlights the modern day person who walks through [00:01:00] life holding a lot of pain. The film isn't about the crime. It's not about the mob. It's not about the violence depicted on the screen. It's about the psychological freedom that the characters illustrate that psychological freedom oftentimes within us, it's a system that works off the books.

It's not part of normal law and order. thus we see how these characters create this archetype of trauma processing, trauma management. that's the reason we keep tuning in.

Why when it's on HBO or TNT or TBS or one of these channels, we stop and continue to engage in it regardless of the fact that we've watched this film countless times. We reengage in it because we are identifying what those character archetypes, and that's what we're gonna talk about today.

The character archetypes in the movie Goodfellas, [00:02:00] a brilliant piece of cinema that will forever go down as something that will have to be shown to future generations as an indicator of just how great. Modern society had become it is truly a work of art. The trauma depicted in it is beautifully captured and illustrated to the watcher as a cautionary tale, but also one of empowerment.

This is a story of people who were raised in some of the most horrific environments that we would consider horrific from a modern perspective and still found ways to survive. Whether or not that's within the realms of morality, we're not here to judge, we're just here to look at the character archetypes and to see why they were the way they were.

obviously we can summarize the trauma and experience of being a [00:03:00] migrant, but it goes further beyond that. And today I hope that we can just use this time to indulge ourselves in our sense of wonder to really just look at the film, Goodfellas as a clinical learning, something that perhaps we would do in graduate school to try to decipher and differentiate different psychological positions.

This is not unlike things we've done in school. so let's do it here. and have this dissertation level course on Goodfellas, the psychology. Born made men. The inner lives of good fells. We're not here to judge the wise guys. We're here to diagnose them on today's precision cycle. This is elevate do epo. Ah, Enrique, let's open it up I want to begin by saying that this isn't about morality.

This isn't about the mob. This is about psychology. What we're watching in Goodfellas is not just a mob story, [00:04:00] it's a living case study for dissociation, narcissism, trauma bonding, and arrested development.

So let's just start off by saying that we're not here to romanticize any of the violence. We're not here to romanticize the mob. We're not here to romanticize any of the depictions that happen in the film. We're strictly here to decode the characters on the screen. 

Engage in the content the way that we may, at graduate school level, where we're trying to see real world examples of what these DSM diagnoses look like. With that caveat, let's jump in. 

We will look at this through the precision cycle lens, which is object relations, trauma mapping, survival adaptation. And so looking at it from that perspective, we see that Goodfellas is a trauma story in a tracksuit. if you haven't seen [00:05:00] it, and if you have seen it, reset here. it's the story of Henry Hill who grew up in New York and was a member of, crime family, and. These are his exploits, his tales, his experiences, that were presented in the book, called Wise Guys by by Nick Peggi.

What we're seeing and then is the case studies for the differentiations of these characters and the archetypes. 

The way that we're gonna engage in this material is to look at this through a standardized, five point rubric. We're gonna talk to the DSM feature in the character. the developmental roots of that DSM feature. the defense mechanisms illustrated within every character, the precision cycle insight that we would offer, and 

What you're really seeing on the screen. using those five points, let's dive right in and look at Henry Hill, who was played by the late great Ray Liotta. [00:06:00] he does a great job of illustrating the archetype of addicted chameleon. This is someone that, from A DSM perspective, has a persistent depressive disorder with mixed substance use disorder and narcissistic traits.

The developmental roots of that are the early exposure to disorganized environments. And we saw this with, a very abusive father, Irish father who was married to his Sicilian mother. He had a family who had someone with a disability, which made it very difficult and a lot of, tension in the house.

And there was a scene early on when Scorsese captures this when his dad found out that he hadn't been going to school and the beating that Henry Hill took, that shows you It was a highly abusive environment, which then led to this obsession that he had with power. the obsession with power via the proximity.

And we saw that with Polly. his proximity with Polly and to Jimmy and to Tommy. somebody who really was [00:07:00] looking for someone to save him at the end of the day. this is why he latched onto these really strong personalities, was because he was constantly trying to look for someone that would protect him against his father's blind rage and inability to reason with him.

About what his experience was about. This was really at the core of Henry Hill. This is a person who grew up invisible in his own house, and the only time he was noticed was when he was out trying to experiment with freedom.

Leads to how he's easily seduced by. Belonging and status, how he's easily thrown off guard. even Jimmy Conway, his best friend, who's one of the people he idolizes, played by Robert De Niro, tells him that he needs to be careful with the way he's chasing a lot of these things that he knows not appropriate for him.

He's already been warned, but. he is constantly seduced by the allure of [00:08:00] being more than the person he sees as powerful. In this case, Polly, in this case, Tommy, in this case Jimmy. And this goes back to being that little boy who was constantly just beat and never given a chance to explain.

It was never ingrained in him that there's a mechanism out here that's bigger than all that, that potentially we can utilize that concept as opposed to latching to power, sheer raw power, and utilizing that to express ourselves. And thus we see how Henry Hill, illustrates a lot of just innate idealization and devaluation.

These are very primitive defenses that he's illustrating. We see this with the relationship with Maury. the way that he was very, Easily able to just turn on him and get rid of him. let Jimmy just deal with him, not fight this person who he considered to be, a relational friend, 

He, was in his inner circle, but he let him go. There is the dissociation that [00:09:00] occurs. we see this with the blind rage when he goes and beats up the man who had, assaulted Karen. his response was fury and violence. that exists as a function of his internal compartmentalization.

His ability to take different parts of themselves, close them off. And, again, very brilliantly illustrated, Friday nights were for the wives, Saturday nights for the girlfriends. those great scenes at the Copa Cabana. Describes the Henry Hill character, where he's coming from, and his arc shows this constant need to look towards power. Even in the end, when he gave up the gang and went into witness protection he was still trying to negotiate terms via his wife, Lorraine Brocko, who he had in the relationship, seeded a lot of power to.

And this was the classic, Henry Hill was this projection of this image of a tough man of power that had always been hiding behind his mother's skirt. Because yes, [00:10:00] he had been always hoping that his Sicilian mom, who he revered, would protect him from the fury of his Irish father. And that's not unlike what happened at the end when he utilized Karen to protect them from the fury of the United States government.

Moving on to Jimmy Conway, played by the brilliant Robert De Niro. I'm not gonna sit here and discuss Robert de Niro's, filmography because it speaks for itself, what he did with Jimmy Conway was an amazing piece of acting to illustrate the cold operator, the archetype of the person who, from a DSM perspective, has an antisocial personality disorder with narcissistic overlays.

We don't see a lot of where Jimmy came from in his presentation, Early on, we find out that he's Irish. So we assume there's some early emotional neglect. and same things were with Henry Hill, were [00:11:00] control equal safety. drawing from my own experiences, having clients who are Irish immigrants, I've heard in family sessions, the term slagging. another way of saying taking a piss.

what that is it's a culturally accepted way of ribbing people just teasing them. this even occurs between parents and kids. one of the things the client was trying to discuss their family was that every time they engaged in this slagging, it was a microaggression.

to them, which implicated their eating disorder. that's a product of changing norms and standards and the adaptation of technology and research, which has given us insights into microaggressions and how they affect people negatively.

But we have to assume that Jimmy Conway, the character from Good Fellows was a victim of that as well. Somebody who experienced that kind of microaggressive container. and became a person that had to close himself [00:12:00] down and just be very sort of poker faced about his intentions because there was always this constant fear of.

People coming at him. he had come to really learn this defense mechanism, which made him this cold operator. You never knew where he was coming or going. You didn't know if you were good with him, if you were bad with him. and for that, that was safety for him because that was control.

We see that the defense mechanisms here detachment how easily he's, able to detach himself from. reality to, create situations where then he'll react in a certain way. We see the objectification of people there. The La Tanza heist essentially prove that how he had utilized people's skills to obtain, riches and then systematically just murdered them all so that he wouldn't even have to pay them.

that sort of leads to his predatory calculus that, permeates throughout his entire existence his life is a constant [00:13:00] negotiation and is a, his life is this algorithm essentially where if you're inconvenient, like Karen, at the end he has no problem selling you out or, getting rid of you so that you don't impede his best interests.

That is classic narcissism. And so the insight here is that Jimmy treats relationships, like tools. He utilizes them as actual weapons to leverage into his creation. and so once a tool is used, and it's useful, it's discarded because it's no longer necessary 

A piece, that we're working on, is very relatable. If you think about how many times you have to buy a new paintbrush every time you paint a wall? Because you're not the type of person that sort of keeps them laying around. My dad is that kind of a person who has paintbrushes from like 1975 in his garage.

I'm the kind of person that will go out and buy a brand new set of paintbrushes every time I have to repaint because I'm not storing that. his mentality is [00:14:00] humans are the paintbrushes in his world of, wall painting. Because they've just served us a purpose.

And afterwards, when you're ready to hang the thing on the wall and start making your podcasts, you forget about how important those things were. Which speaks to a lot of my own personal, developmental.

cognitive growth that I have to, go through. I don't do that anymore. I properly wash all my. Paintbrushes. I appreciate the fact that paintbrushes are now $20 each. So I do treat those with the reverence and respect that they deserve.

Be that as it may, that is the essence of what Jimmy Conrad deals with internally, and for him, it's about human beings. This is the cold operator in a nutshell. Moving on to Tommy DeVito. That is probably everyone's favorite character. Tommy DeVito, of course, played by Joe Pesci.

he represents the explosive narcissist, flat out, straight on explosive narcissism. This is what Donald [00:15:00] Trump would be like if he actually had the energy and was about the action, he'd be Tommy DeVito.

because what Tommy illustrates is borderline personality disorder. with narcissistic rage. Let's break it down developmentally, This probably occurred. and we have a great scene where he speaks with his mom they have a great exchange and it's cordial and it's jovial.

And you could tell that there's a tight bond there. That bond exists as trauma. He is highly trauma bonded to his mom, and thus. What that kind of tells me is that he has a history of chronic invalidation, possible physical emotional abuse. Whether that was his mo, his dad, we don't know because we don't really see where he came from and his upbringing.

But if we use the Billy Bats incident, as any type of insight into who Tommy DeVito is, he got triggered. Into a disassociative [00:16:00] rage that was prolonged, that even distance was not able to diffuse when he was called a shoeshine boy. Or at least when Billy Bats said to go back and get a shine box.

That is classic trauma. response, trauma, dissociative, narcissistic rage, and what's essentially if you go back to my episode on the tennis court, you have this game that Tommy is playing with himself, where there is this literal border, which think of it as a tennis court, and then on one side is depression version of Tommy, and one side is narcissism.

Side of Tommy, the depression side of Tommy has an existential fear of abandonment, and so what happens is the narcissism is engaged not even as a coping mechanism. The narcissism is engaged as just the preemptive trauma flashback component. He feels it [00:17:00] coming on. So rather than just dissociate into it and experience the feelings of whatever he's feeling here that's causing him to go into fight or flight, he's just heading it off at the pass and engaging the narcissism so that he doesn't even have to go through that cycle.

And so essentially he's just shooting people and beating people up because he is literally existentially afraid of abandonment. That is at the core what Tommy DeVito is. He's a scared little boy who is abandoned and is constantly protecting against being abandoned. This is why he sees a splitting one minute spider, for instance.

He's good and one minute he's bad. He's having a great time at the bar, at the restaurant, and the next minute he's doing loyalty tests with Henry Hill. Funny how, projective identification, you see this very clearly in a lot of what he does. [00:18:00] where he puts his own shame into others,

and then you see the rage as a boundary setting. He doesn't know how to communicate the boundaries. rather than sit there and discuss when you, I feel x when you do y he'd rather just punch you in the mouth or shoot you in the head. That is Tommy DeVito. the insight here is that he explodes even before you can shame him.

that's how volatile he even the perception of shame will get him to activate. Thus, his violence is preemptive. It's a preemptive strike against annihilation, and so we have to address, with someone like Tommy DeVito, we'd have to address what is this fear of annihilation about?

That's where we implement the Lacanian concepts. The symbology, that fear of death lives in reality, but has moved from the imaginary, you grab the iPhone and it's a computer for one person, but [00:19:00] if you beat someone over the head with it. It's something else.

that is what Tommy DeVito is living with, the fact that he got beat with the iPhone and he doesn't wanna have that happen anymore. So he's just gonna preemptively just not let it happen. When we see it from that perspective, we Tommy DeVito, his whole personality opens up to us.

He's a very predictable human being. is he someone that would ever come to therapy? No. Is he someone that would be arrested and go through the system? Probably. And when they do, is he someone that would meet a clinician that would be able to see that and identify that in someone and help him through that, whether incarcerated or not?

Probably not, because most of those clinicians are fresh out of school. Most of them are not willing to look at. That full spectrum, that precision cycle looks at people through. And so what you're actually seeing here is a man in permanent flashback. his dominance, is a terrified child's last defense lashing [00:20:00] out punching his way out.

You have to think about the type of experience as someone who would look at the world that way. I am constantly in the corner and I constantly had to punch my way out. that's a lot of trauma and that's something that oftentimes is missed when we're looking at people who have that level of violent presentation.

Moving to Karen Hill, played by Lorraine Brocko. Brilliant actress would go on to play Dr. Melfi in the Sopranos. she is the trauma co-conspirator. the DSM features that she illustrates in the movie is a dependent personality, with features of codependency and the PTSD. 

She grew up in an affluent household, but a neighbor had taken advantage of her. This was her entry into Henry Hill's violent world, and she even admits that was attractive to her. this is not unlike a lot of [00:21:00] experiences you hear from people in eating disorder treatment centers, for instance, who often will talk about how they're in relationships that are very abusive.

But there's also this admiration for the abuser.

And so from a developmental standpoint, she grew up Internalizing male validation as survival. this was because she had a mother who was, opinionated and a father who was letting the mother dictate the terms of his aging. Karen and I always looked at Karen as the, Natalie Wood character in, rebel without a Cause. The type of person who was always trying to look for her dad's love. he had for some reason, distanced himself because culturally, it may have not been appropriate in those class systems to really illustrate.

Father to daughter, affection. we saw it in the Natalie Wood [00:22:00] character. she went to kiss her dad on the cheek and he slapped her. which I thought was pretty interesting, by Ilya Kaan, but then also here, Martin Scorsese alludes to the same thing where he makes Karen Hill's dad voiceless.

he illustrates the power imbalances in modern relationships that leave, women, seeking male validation. navigating, the safe spaces between, mother and daughter at that point. this seduction into danger, mirrors childhood chaos, where she fighting for internal validation. Her defense mechanism is the denial.

Of what's occurring. She's recognizing that she's sitting in a room with women she knows she doesn't identify with, but will lie to herself that everything's fine. This is the fantasy she lives with, that somehow Henry Hill Will, turn it around, and become a different person.

But she loves the money and everything that she's getting from it and the status Brilliantly [00:23:00] illustrated here by Scorsese the enmeshment with her family, her mother and father. We see this, subtly presented, as you age and have relationships of your own you navigate, family dynamics, her first instinct was to run to her mom and dad and then utilize that energy to give her mom the space to have a voice. That's why relationships often fail because people who are highly enmeshed are trauma bonded. That is a very clean indicator for a narcissistic borderline position.

Is that very strong? Bond to enmeshed bond to a family. And I'm not saying it's not appropriate to be close to your family, but if you're in your thirties or forties and you're still deferring your decision making to your parents, still asking them for guidance in your life.

You're still relying on them for some sort of cognitive skill. Then you are repressed and that [00:24:00] needs to be addressed because that's not necessarily healthy to be that engaged and enmeshed with your family. Autonomy is not gained through continued enmeshment with a family. if anything, that tells me you're probably more trauma bonded than anything.

This brings us to the precision cycle insight for someone like Karen. Where she didn't clearly fall for Henry Hill. They've never really loved each other, and you see that plainly in the movie. She fell for the illusion of power And the access he gave her, after we strip away the relational dynamics and move past the honeymoon period, see how Karen only stuck around for the power I. And the status. She never really in love with Henry. She would later come to be in love with Henry because their story had trauma bonded them by the end, where they had to stick together.

But afterwards she divorced them, as the story goes. So you see there was never [00:25:00] any real love there. She was captivated and swept off her feet by the bad boy a lot of women and men are, illustrate to this day.

They get swept away by people that they know are bad for them and they don't care because they are more attracted to the mirror that person is rather than. Who that person actually is inside.

what you're seeing with Karen Hill is someone trying to self-regulate through proximity to chaos. This is a love story between mutual abandonment wounds, A highly broken person in Henry Hill bonded to a highly. voyeuristic, but traumatized person Karen.

That is why you have, waking up to revolvers in your face and being chased by helicopters in the movie. They both recognize and understand each other's trauma and thus stay in it. that is every residential case [00:26:00] I've ever had to navigate and work 

So I just went through, four. Character types here in the time we have. It was, a good beginning to get us started on looking at this piece and what we're looking at and, there's obviously more characters that we can dive into and really analyze when we see this we see that Martin Scorsese really put together.

A great cast to tell a great story, and that story is that Goodfellas is uniquely American, but it is a story for all of us because the pain that is felt, the characters that we're watching, the archetypes that are on the screen, their characters, the way that they respond, is the way that we transmute and transmit our own injustice and experience.

we watch Tommy Act the way he acts because we wish we could do that ourselves. we identify with his unspoken pain. We identify with the fact that we go into places as adults and are [00:27:00] constantly still being teased by bullies. We identify with that and the fact that sometimes the only way is to respond with our own violence.

And that's the problem is that violent response, whether that's Tommy DeVito or whether that's you sending that passive aggressive email exists as violence nonetheless, when that gets delivered, the core intent of your communication is stripped away. this is the crux of what I'm trying to tell clients about Precision Cycle.

It's not coaching, it's not therapy. What it is it's us analyzing and establishing a baseline seven dimensions of understanding your personality. And what that does is it tells you how you respond to the world, what you look like to others. And what that does then is let you know that

your response as well justified as you thought it was, may have been passive aggressive, may have [00:28:00] been a little too aggressive, may have done something to sabotage your career. you may have put something in there that was a little too personal because it leaked outta your personality, which now is another reason why people are discrediting you and not taking your voice serious.

So we identify with that. But the reality is that precision cycle is here to let you understand that your blind spot is the reason you're not getting that raise. It's the reason you're not getting dates. It's the reason people ghost you, and that's the precision cycle difference, is understanding how you respond, why you respond, and then working together to find a different response.

Which then lets you send that email with that same intent, but now in a way that's actually received, processed, acknowledged, and respected. Rather than dismissed. I'm recording this on the 13th [00:29:00] of June, Friday the 13th. we have senator Alex Padilla, who just got arrested for trying to interrupt A-A-D-H-D-H-S press conference, be, have your opinion of, of that as you will, regardless of what side you're on.

At the end of the day, what I saw was a person pulling a political stunt, which doesn't further any cause and just makes the target of the ire that much more, discredited because now all people see is the angry brown man, as a brown man myself.

Latino living in Los Angeles. That's not something that I agree with, and that's not utilizing precision to challenge systems that are broken, but have rules and regulations for a reason. how we get from Goodfellas.

To Precision Cycle, to Alex Padilla, the [00:30:00] reason you go to school is to learn format. It's to learn decorum. If I wanna be taken seriously as a psychologist, I have to write my documents and a PA format. Not unlike if I was trying to be a writer, I'd have to write an MLA format.

The format exists. Because we are entering spaces like the Senate, that have rules, regulations, codes, processes, procedures, and they're there for a reason to be heard. And when we're theatrically overreacting, the way that characters and Goodfellas do in real life, that message is gonna be discredited 

We're not backing it with all the violence that Goodfellas is coming at it. We're trying to posture rather than actually be authentic. And that is what Precision Cycle does, is helps you recognize that your authentic self will be more effective in presenting this counterpoint because people would rather work with the well-regulated, [00:31:00] calibrated and integrated person.

Who is capable of having an adult conversation rather than people who are gonna lash out be performative inauthentic and not be fully present to deal with adult issues. And so I hope with that have wrapped up a good week here. Thank you to everyone who has downloaded a podcast, who has watched us on Precision Cycle tv, on YouTube and TikTok.

We love the fact that we're able to deliver content to you and that you continue to support us. Thank you very much for all your support. If you're ready to begin your precision cycle, we have a June calibration call .

DM me. You can reach me directly at enrique@elevateepo.com. You can reach me at Precision Cycle TV on YouTube and TikTok Instagram. Let us know that you're ready for your calibration. Call 60 minutes. You'll come in, you'll have a conversation.

We [00:32:00] will provide a seven point quantitative report that will show your personality position, the hidden aspects of your defense mechanisms, why you do the things you do, why you continue to remain stuck In your current situation, why you continue to self-sabotage.

We will uncover all that in 60 minutes and put together a roadmap to help you gain and practice the skills to correct that behavior That's something no mental health therapist is going to guarantee you. But if you come in for this June calibration call, reduce price.

I am here looking for new clients that wanna come in and start working. You're done with therapy, coaching, self-help. You're done with everything that these influencers have been trying to tell you because you've recognized it doesn't work.

What does work is having a seven point dimensional.

Diagnostic on your personality. That's what works. [00:33:00] Data that tells you this is what you're dealing with and this is how we move forward. And if you're tired of living in the past, being frustrated by not being taken seriously, now's your time to start 2026. You got six months to go. You might as well learn their skills now, so you can start 2026 off on the right foot and be the best version of yourself when opportunity presents.

Thank you very much. My name is Enrique. I appreciate all your support. I'll be back on Monday for more content. Thank you for tuning into Precision Cycle Elevate dot epo. Have a great weekend.