How a Psychologist Helps You Understand Trauma Through Film & tV Characters
Welcome to Characters On The Couch, my Film & Television site, where I delve into character psychology. If you’re interested in psychology, film, or a combination of the two, I bring my insights into your favorite contemporary and classic characters. I hope to help you understand their deeper psychological motivations (and, maybe, even your own).
When you think about truly iconic films, do you wonder what gives them such staying power? Is it the time of your life when you watched them? Is it the costumes or images that seemed unforgettable? Did one or more characters align with your struggles or painful experiences? Did you feel along with them? Or maybe, it’s simply that the film pulled at your heart and caused you to explore emotions in a new and profound way?
I say it’s all of the above. And, in the same way, when these meaningful elements are missing, a story becomes forgettable. I hope this site will encourage you to transform your story, personal or in writing, into magic by finding the human thread that links it and you to a universal experience.
Everything in life ties us back to complex emotions and the rhythm and language of feelings and psychology. I'll offer your that language of feeling in my blog as I write about the human struggles in each film.
WOMAN OF THE HOUR: Seeing (Or Not Seeing) Red Flags
Who will hurt you the most? That’s the hidden question in Anna Kendrick’s Woman of the Hour. And, as a woman, how do you tell? It’s by seeing (or not seeing) red flags. Sometimes, you can’t see them when you’re lonely or hungry for attention and love. Other times, when you have reasons not to…
IT ENDS WITH US: Ways Traumatized Children (Then Adults) React
It Ends With Us is about ending the cycle of domestic violence. At least on the surface, it is. But, looking more deeply into Justin Baldoni’s film, we find different ways traumatized children (then adults) react. All these reactions, painfully and tragically played out by Lily, Ryle, and Atlas in It Ends With Us, lead…
HIS THREE DAUGHTERS: Fear of Loss = Disconnection
When you’ve already lost too much and live in fear of more loss, that can make you disconnect. This is where we find the three sisters in Azazel Jacobs‘s His Three Daughters. Disconnected. They each have a method of disconnection and each has her reasons. But disconnection is lonely and creates more loss, even if…
