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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 DRESS
What It Tells Us
About Unyielding Convictions

The Dress went viral. And, it has a lot to do with how people see things. The whole business about The Dress also shows us what happens when people get convictions stuck in their heads. And, more so, If disagreement over things like the color of The Dress destroys relationships (Buzz Feed), then someone must…

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GRAHAM MOORE’S MOVING ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
Why Harsh Critics?

I am one of those who applauded Graham Moore for his moving and courageous acceptance speech when he won his Imitation Game Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. So, as a psychologist, when I read the critiques, I had to stop and think: Why? Why pick on things like – he isn’t gay? He used the word…

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GONE GIRL
What Makes Amy Elliot Dunne Tick?
7 Clues

Amy Elliot Dunne is a seriously troubled young woman. Rosamund Pike’s nuanced and chilling performance, in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, does her troubles justice. Yet, can we merely write her off as an unredeemable sociopath? If we follow some clues to what drove her to do what she did – is it even remotely possible to…

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