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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.

THE END OF THE TOUR
A Self-Loathing Voice & Depression

The End of the Tour shows that a self-loathing voice can’t be allowed to take center stage. It makes you believe other people are thinking terrible thoughts about you too. You keep your distance. It’s a lonely place to be. David Foster Wallace’s short story, The Depressed Person, shows he knew that struggle well. So…

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THE END OF THE TOUR
Jason Segel Gets Inside
Foster Wallace’s Quiet Torment

Depression is outwardly a quiet torment. Inside it’s an almost constant implosion of self-deprecating self-doubt. That’s what we witness in director James Ponsoldt’s The End of the Tour – wrapped around David Foster Wallace like his famous bandana. Woven all-too-frequently into the substance of his conversation with David Lipsky: the ravages of a cruelly oppressive…

Read More about THE END OF THE TOURJason Segel Gets InsideFoster Wallace’s Quiet Torment

AMY
How A Psychoanalyst Looks At
Her “Freudian Fate” & Bulimia

Asif Kapadia’s deeply truthful, Amy, makes something very clear. Although Amy Winehouse predicted fame would “drive her mad,” it was more her psychological troubles that set her on a fatal downward spiral. The lyrics to What Is It About Men – “my Freudian fate. History repeats itself. It fails to die,” only touch the surface…

Read More about AMYHow A Psychoanalyst Looks At Her “Freudian Fate” & Bulimia