Mary's description of trauma in her book is basically "everyone is stuck in loops that they developed as a child to protect themseves." The question the movie is trying to answer is: can people break those cycles?

Clark is trying to break his cycle of self destruction, self pity, and anger. This manifests as the Capt'n Clark monster.

The backrooms copy thing from the real world until they become copied so many times they loose all detail and are just more nothingness/office space.

This is a mirror of the workings of our minds. We ruminate on our issues and they become their own entity. Details change, but we continue to look deeper and deeper, ultimately removing the meaning that was once there.

Like the role playing exercise Clark does with Mary. The conversation distorts. We the audience will never see the actual conversation, the original. (I saw someone online point out clark might have thrown the glass in anger. Maybe, we don't know). The point is every time they do the exercise it changes, but the anger Clark feels and isn't accepting gets highlighted more.

But I think the movie was saying, that in the end this behavior doesn't get you any closer to understanding your problems or finding solutions. It just keeps you looping. It leads nowhere. It's a drawing of a dog you've never seen based on a description from someone else. It's walking deeper into the backrooms.

Three characters play out these loops. Clark as already discussed, also Phil.

Phil keeps searching the back rooms for more. Taking meticulously data on every detail. Begging Mary to explain it to him. He is trying to draw the dog. But he still has no answers, just more questions. This behavior is also putting people in danger. He knows exactly where Mary clipped from, but has done nothing to protect her.

Side note: I also think the fact that the corporation used to make MRI machines plays into this theme so well. Humans are trying to map out the brain, like Phil tries to map out the backrooms. The structure gives us insights into what it is and how it works, but doesn't answer any questions fully. There is always more to study while actual psychiatric issues manifest in ways that couldn't possibly be fully described with pictures of the brain.

The third character stuck looping is Mary. Her job as a therapist is her loop of being attached to mentally ill people. Wanting to help them, but as she admits in the "dinner" scene, she doesn't know how. She understands Clark's problems. She tells him why his wife left. She can describe the dog, but she can't make Clark change. All she can do is sit and watch the mental health crisis play out. Just like her mother's hospitalization.

In the end, I think the movie says that you definitely can't change if you don't want to, like Clark. He knows in the real world his issues hurt others, but he can't stop and then he watches his monster self physically hurt others and he still doesn't want to change. He wants to isolate himself and fall apart completely. He is literally consumed by himself. I feel like all the clark stuff is so heavy handed haha.

However I think things are left up to interpretation in Mary's case. It's not answered if she fully leaves the back rooms/the corporations office. We don't know how her story ends. Maybe her admitting that she doesn't know how to help others is the first step to breaking her loop. But in the end even if she is able to break the cycle, there will always be a copy of her, in the backrooms, looping and reforming.

As someone who has mental health problems, and has done trauma therapy and is a human who tries to understand herself; this movie felt very poignant. Humans will get stuck in cycles and as we play them out they get distorted. Even the act of trying to understand the cycles is a form of this. Some understanding is helpful but maybe we dont need to fully map out our minds.

I believe we can make changes, and grow, and interrupt our trauma loops. But it will still always be there, as a distorted copy of itself.