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 you that language of feeling in my blog as I write about the human struggles in each film.
CABARET
How Quickly Freedom Disappears
It’s frightening how quickly freedoms can disappear. The question is: Why is it sometimes hard to see the complicated forces, in the outside world and living inside us, that want to deceive us if we aren’t aware. What blinds us can make us vulnerable. Cabaret is a powerful and disturbing illustration, plus a startling reminder,…
PERFECT DAYS: When “Now is Now” Isn’t as Simple as It Seems
Hirayama (Kôji Yakusho) cleans toilets in Wim Wenders 2023 film, Perfect Days. He cleans with perfect attentiveness and precision. Hirayama cares about what he does. He cares with the peacefulness of a man who seems happy in his very routine days. I say “seems” because living in the “now” as Hirayama has perfected, isn’t always…
MY OLD ASS: A Fear of Goodbyes
18-year-old Elliott’s worst fear was goodbye. This fear persisted into her almost-40s, as we see when she encounters My Old Ass on a Shrooms trip in Megan Park’s film. You wouldn’t know Elliott was afraid to say goodbye with her repeated mantra that she can’t wait to get away. She’s even convinced her family. That…
