• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail

Characters On The Couch

How a psychologist thinks about your favorite Film & TV characters.

  • Home
  • Blog
  • About Sandra E. Cohen, PhD
  • Entertainment Consulting
  • Psychology & Story
  • Leo Hurwitz’s Documentaries
  • Contact
Gravity Grave Losses Fight or Flight?

GRAVITY
Grave Losses: Fight or Flight?

August 1, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Life In Space Is Impossible What kind of beautiful and terrifying space does Gravity tell us about? The vast reaches of outer space, to be sure. Alfonso Cuaron’s film, Gravity, is a cinematographically beautiful cliffhanger of a space odyssey. Yet, there is a compelling psychological subtext: the gravity of Dr. Ryan Stone’s unresolved grief. What …

Read moreGRAVITY
Grave Losses: Fight or Flight?
PHILOMENA Triumph over Shame

PHILOMENA
Triumph Over Shame

August 1, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness … (T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets) Shame ravages. It eats away at you. It makes you collapse into yourself and live with secrets – seemingly too shameful to tell. Philomena Lee’s (Judi Dench) story is the story of …

Read morePHILOMENA
Triumph Over Shame
NEBRASKA Money or Love? Which is the Real Prize?

NEBRASKA
Money or Love? What’s the Prize?

August 1, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

What does a son do when he feels his dad doesn’t love him? Either silently withdraw or take the road trip of his life to just spend a little time together. Director Alexander Payne has done it brilliantly again. Nebraska isn’t the road trip we took in Sideways. It’s a father-son road trip, and a touchingly redemptive ride …

Read moreNEBRASKA
Money or Love? What’s the Prize?
The Wolf of Wall Street There are no friends in the world of Greed

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
No Friends In A World Of Greed

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street is an indulgently voyeuristic picture of MORE, MORE, MORE, (we call it Greed), at every level. Money, sex, drugs – there’s no stopping the film’s main characters, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his cohorts, from their purely hedonistic pursuits. And, yet, that’s still not enough. Is Martin Scorsese …

Read moreTHE WOLF OF WALL STREET
No Friends In A World Of Greed
Dallas Buyers Club - How to buy a Will to Live

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB 
How to Buy a Will to Live

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

There are two radical choices when faced with a death sentence: jolt into a potent sobriety and fight to live. Or, sink into despair so deep that drugs are a greater solace than fighting the monster killing you. Ron Woodroof, played brilliantly by Matthew McConaughey (Golden Globe Best Actor), in Dallas Buyer’s Club, chooses the …

Read moreDALLAS BUYERS CLUB 
How to Buy a Will to Live
American Hustle Poisonous Choices to Survive

AMERICAN HUSTLE
Do You Have to Make a Poisonous Choice to Survive?

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

David O. Russell’s American Hustle is a cinematic treatise on the complexities of survival. Irving Rosenfeld, Sydney Prosser (AKA Lady Edith Greensley), Richie DiMaso, and Rosalyn Rosenfeld are each, in their own uniquely perverse and destructive ways, just trying to survive. But, are they? If we remove ourselves from the intrigue of the hustle itself (based upon the …

Read moreAMERICAN HUSTLE
Do You Have to Make a Poisonous Choice to Survive?
  • ← Previous
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 38
  • Go to page 39
  • Go to page 40
  • Go to page 41
  • Next →

Inspiration

“We come to Film and TV to find our hidden stories. If we look deeply into a character’s psyche, there is much to see about ourselves.”

Recent Posts

The Power of the Dog Why Phil Burbank’s Cruelty is About What He Hates in Himself
SOUND OF METAL How Silence Stops A Man From Running
The Father Dementia and The Fight To Hold Onto Who He Was

Copyright © 2022 · Sandra E. Cohen, Ph.D. · All Rights Reserved