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How a psychologist thinks about your favorite

Film & TV characters.

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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.

JAKE GYLLENHAAL
DEMOLITION
Ways Not to Grieve

I just watched the trailer for Jake Gyllenhaal’s upcoming 2016 film, Demolition, about the aftermath of his character, Davis’s, sudden loss of his wife, Julia. Loss can take many forms. As the trailer shows, Davis unravels. He can’t pull himself together. His father-in-law tries to encourage him to rebuild his life. To do so, he…

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THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
A Girl Who Can’t Grieve
Her Dead Father

Loss can be a dead place. If you move forward, you’ll know the person you love is gone. As I sat spellbound in the Majestic Theater watching the brilliant performances of James Barbour as Phantom and Julia Udine as Christine Daad, I knew that The Phantom Of The Opera isn’t only the story of a…

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99 HOMES
What Makes Someone Become
Who He Hates?

Alert: Possible Spoilers How can someone do exactly to other people what’s been done to him? That’s the big psychological question in Ramin Bahrani’s new film, 99 Homes. How can Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) become the right-hand man to the very real estate developer (Michael Shannon) who callously uses the housing market collapse to repossess and…

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