The First Time I Met the Wiseguys

Jun 13

It was 1991. I walked into the Warehouse video rental in Eagle Rock after school and picked up a VHS copy of Goodfellas. I had no idea what I was about to watch. The mafia, the coded family dynamics, the brutality—all of it hit like a brick through a stained-glass window. It was visceral. It was thrilling.

But what kept me coming back over the years wasn’t the blood or the suits.

It was the ache.

Something in that film captured the internal chaos I didn’t yet have language for. Over time, I stopped seeing Goodfellas as just a mob classic. I started seeing it for what it really is: a trauma story in a tracksuit. A survival manual disguised as cinema.

🧠 What You're Actually Watching

Goodfellas is not about crime. It's about identity. It's about the psychological architecture people build to survive when love is absent, when control is safety, and when chaos becomes home. Martin Scorsese didn’t just make a movie—he made a map.

And if you're willing to see it clinically, Goodfellas is a diagnostic tool. A case study of personality disintegration, object relations, and trauma bonding at scale.

Using the PrecisionCycle lens—DSM patterns, developmental roots, defense mechanisms, core insight, and lived presentation—let’s break it down by character.

👤 Henry Hill: The Addicted Chameleon

DSM Profile: Persistent Depressive Disorder, Mixed Substance Use, Narcissistic Traits
Developmental Roots: Raised in a violent, disorganized home. A father whose affection came through fists, and a mother he revered but couldn’t protect him.
Defense Mechanisms: Idealization → Devaluation, Compartmentalization, Dissociation
Precision Insight: Henry isn't seduced by crime—he's seduced by proximity to power. He's trying to escape the invisible boyhood that taught him safety comes through attachment to the strongest man in the room.
What You’re Seeing: A man with no core. He tries on identities like suits, chasing validation from men who embody the fury he never got to confront in his father.

🥶 Jimmy Conway: The Cold Operator

DSM Profile: Antisocial Personality Disorder with Narcissistic Overlay
Developmental Roots: Irish cultural microaggressions and emotional suppression. Safety achieved through control, silence, calculation.
Defense Mechanisms: Emotional detachment, Objectification, Predatory Calculus
Precision Insight: Jimmy doesn’t build relationships—he manages risk. If you’re useful, you’re in. If not, you disappear.
What You’re Seeing: A man who’s poker-faced not because he’s cool, but because feeling is dangerous. Everyone’s a paintbrush—disposable once the job is done.

🔥 Tommy DeVito: The Explosive Narcissist

DSM Profile: Borderline Personality Disorder with Narcissistic Rage
Developmental Roots: Chronic invalidation. Possibly abused. Trauma-bonded to his mother, terrorized by the invisible hand of shame.
Defense Mechanisms: Splitting, Projective Identification, Rage as Boundary-Setting
Precision Insight: Tommy doesn’t just lose control—he nukes the room before anyone can shame him. He’s in permanent trauma flashback.
What You’re Seeing: A terrified child punching his way out of every corner. His dominance is the last line of defense against emotional annihilation.

💄 Karen Hill: The Trauma Co-Conspirator

DSM Profile: Dependent Personality Features, PTSD, Codependency
Developmental Roots: Grew up seeking male validation as survival. Cultural norms stripped her father of affection; her mother dominated the emotional space.
Defense Mechanisms: Denial, Fantasy, Enmeshment
Precision Insight: Karen didn’t fall for Henry. She fell for the illusion of power he gave her access to.
What You’re Seeing: A woman regulating her nervous system through proximity to danger. What reads as love is really a trauma contract.

🧩 Why You Keep Rewatching It

This isn’t about them.

This is about you.

You keep watching Goodfellas not because you love mob stories—but because it gives shape to parts of yourself you still don’t know how to name. You relate to Henry’s impostor syndrome. To Jimmy’s tight grip. To Tommy’s volcanic shame. To Karen’s quiet desperation.

You don’t want to be them. But part of you is them. And that’s the hook.

🧪 PrecisionCycle Isn’t Therapy. It’s Calibration.

If any of this hit a nerve, good. That’s your nervous system identifying with the archetype on screen.

But here’s the difference: Goodfellas ends with compromise, addiction, and exile. You don’t have to.

PrecisionCycle is not therapy. It’s not coaching. It’s a seven-dimensional diagnostic of your behavioral patterns—your blind spots, your defenses, your self-sabotage. It tells you why you ghost, why you get passed up, why your anger gets misread, and what to do about it.

We don’t just label the wound. We reprogram the operating system.

📞 Time to Book Your Calibration Call

If you’re tired of:

Watching your potential get sidelined
Losing people before they see the real you
Repeating loops with no escape velocity

Then it’s time to map your PrecisionCycle.

DM me on IG or email me at enrique@elevateepo.com to schedule your June calibration call.
You’ll walk out with a 7-point report, real clarity, and a roadmap to finally interrupt the loop.

2026 starts now. Let’s make you born again—without needing the wiseguys.

🎧 Download the latest podcast: Born Made Men: The Inner Lives of Goodfellas

Enrique Arteaga