How a psychologist thinks about your favorite
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 your that language of feeling in my blog as I write about the human struggles in each film.
THE LAST TREE
“I’m Sorry” Helps A Boy
Children need secure love. Not broken promises. Or, betrayal. Especially not abuse. When that happens to you, you build hard walls around yourself. Shut down to love. Not believing it’s there. That’s Femi. Small boy, turned teenager in Shola Amoo’s powerful, semi-autobiographical, The Last Tree. And, when “going tough” means turning against needing anyone, that…
NEVER RARELY
SOMETIMES ALWAYS
Secret World Of Sexual Abuse
Watching Autumn’s cautious troubled face in the quietness of Never Rarely Sometimes Always draws us into the dark shattered life of a traumatized girl. If she’d let us in. Autumn lives behind walls. Alone. Vigilant. Angry. Always afraid. Can’t allow help: “I’ve got it.” People aren’t to be trusted. That she’s learned. If you think…
SHE DIES TOMORROW
What Makes This Conviction Unshakable?
The Real Culprit Is Loss
“I’m Ok. I’m Not Ok. It Just Is” (Is it?) You try to reassure yourself, but you can’t. Then you try to accept it. Whatever it is. In Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow, that it is death. But, why tomorrow? Why is Amy’s (the character’s) conviction so unshakable? And contagious? Sure, we have the pandemic…