Joy Behar Probes the Co-Hosts About Their 'Childhood Trauma'

As she's wont to do, Joy Behar spent Friday morning attempting to psychoanalyze her co-hosts and identify the "childhood trauma" that has shaped them into the women they are today. Behar shoehorned her trauma investigation into three different Hot Topics, which both derailed the actual discussion and gave the episode an entertaining (if somewhat distracting) through-line.

The first mention of childhood trauma came during a discussion about the most important things to know about your partner (during which Behar also joke that guest co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin is "living in sin" because she moved in with her husband before getting married). Behar didn't seem to care about knowing her husband's turn-ons or favorite food, instead favoring for a more intense approach. "You ask the question, 'What was the trauma in your childhood?'" she said. "That is what you need to know. Because that determines what a lot of your personality is going to be. As one shrink said to me, 'A wound. It's a wound that you have.' What is your wound?"

When the panel protested, Behar insisted "every child has some kind of wound." In the next segment, she attempted to put that theory to the test while discussing former corrections officer Vicky White, who was accused of springing Casey White (no relation) from an Alabama county jail in late April. "Here's where you look into the childhood trauma. Something happened to her," said the longtime View host. "You find out what happened to her when she was a child that she would be attracted to him. This is not normal to be attracted to the Menendez brothers."

But Behar really got going in the final Hot Topic segment of the morning. As the ladies discussed whether parents and children should "lower their expectations" of one another, she offered Griffin advice from "Zen buddhist" teachings and encouraged Ana Navarro to further examine her relationship with her father.

"I had very high expectations of my dad. I adored my dad, and I adored him since I was a little kid. Had him on a pedestal," said Navarro. "And then I found out later on in life that he wasn't as perfect as I thought he was."

"Ah, trauma!" interrupted Behar. Navarro didn't seem to enjoy the remark, saying, "Baby, I fled a war. If you want to compare trauma, I can do that."

Behar also seemed to suggest that Sunny Hostin is scarring her children by placing such high expectations on them. "So the child feels guilty now? Is that what you're doing?" she asked. "Why don't you say to the kid, 'Does that disappoint you?' Why is it disappointing me?"

Stop therapizing your co-hosts, Joy!

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.