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Characters On The Couch

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

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Film

Brooklyn How Love Heals Homesickness & A Difficult Mother

BROOKLYN
How Love Heals Homesickness
& A Difficult Mother

January 3, 2020 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Has it really been 4 years since John Crowley and Nick Hornby’s film, Brooklyn, hit the big screen? And, why is it still a movie that speaks to us and that we keep going back to? Is it because it’s the versatile and talented Saorise Ronan’s first major film? Or because we all know, somewhere …

Read moreBROOKLYN
How Love Heals Homesickness
& A Difficult Mother
Pain and Glory Pain Of A Mother's Disappointment Glory in Getting Free

PAIN AND GLORY
Pain Of A Mother’s Disappointment
Glory In Getting Free

December 12, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Salvador Mallo, Almodovar’s tortured filmmaker in his new film Pain and Glory, was once a happy boy. And, his beautiful mother, Jacinta, carefree and loving; until they moved to a cave. Slowly, young Salvador (although not consciously aware) begins to carry a heavy burden: his mother’s bitter unhappiness. Jacinta’s growing discontent with her life, with …

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Pain Of A Mother’s Disappointment
Glory In Getting Free
The Silence (1963) Ingmar Bergman Why Silence Can Be Loud and Lonely

THE SILENCE
Ingmar Bergman (1963)
Why Silence Can Be Loud & Lonely

November 6, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Silence isn’t always golden. Not in Ingmar Bergman’s book. And, his various film treatises on silence speak to us loudly on many planes of emotional existence, and those planes are never smooth. Of course, silence can provide a necessary space for personal truths to appear. For imaginings to ripen and take hold. Or, a respite …

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Ingmar Bergman (1963)
Why Silence Can Be Loud & Lonely
A Man and A Woman Old Grief Can Interfere with New Love

A MAN AND A WOMAN 1966
Old Grief Can Interfere With New Love

October 2, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Even beautiful love stories have their complications when grieving for an old love isn’t over. Claude Lelouch’s captivating film A Man And A Woman 1966 has a lot to say about what it takes not to turn away from a new chance to fall in love. It’s in the story Jean-Louis tells Anne early in …

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Old Grief Can Interfere With New Love
the nightingale hate revenge grief and unexpected empathy

THE NIGHTINGALE
What A Well-Crafted Film Tells
About Hate, Revenge, Grief
& Unexpected Empathy

August 3, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Forgiveness is overrated. Understanding is not. And, there’s much to understand in Jennifer Kent’s riveting, violently troubling, and powerful new film, The Nightingale; about trauma, PTSD, unbearable grief, and the sometimes unimaginable sources of empathy. No, no one should ever be expected to forgive their abusers. “Forgiveness” for sadistic cruelty isn’t healing. What helps is …

Read moreTHE NIGHTINGALE
What A Well-Crafted Film Tells
About Hate, Revenge, Grief
& Unexpected Empathy
the last black man in san francisco mother's abandonment

THE LAST BLACK MAN
IN SAN FRANCISCO
When There’s No Home
In A Mother’s Heart

July 24, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

What are the basic ingredients in Joe Talbot and Jimmie Fails’s The Last Black Man In San Francisco? An old Victorian house. A young man who has no home. A mother who abandoned him and can’t keep him in her heart. A necessary fantasy. A Greek Chorus (that speaks the anger, hate, and under it, …

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IN SAN FRANCISCO
When There’s No Home
In A Mother’s Heart
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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

Everything Everywhere All At Once Breaking Out of Someone Else's Box
Nomadland: A Lonely Nomad in the Land of Loss
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

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