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Characters On The Couch

How a psychologist thinks about your favorite Film & TV characters.

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Marriage Story Could This Marriage Have Been Saved If So Then How

MARRIAGE STORY
Could This Marriage Be Saved?
If Yes, Then How?

January 22, 2020 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

It’s a very sad Marriage Story. Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) haven’t stopped loving each other. But, Nicole doesn’t know how to do their marriage anymore. The only answer seems to be divorce. Yet, is it? Noah Baumbach’s film, in all its unearthing of the many deeper questions not yet answered, shows us …

Read moreMARRIAGE STORY
Could This Marriage Be Saved?
If Yes, Then How?
blacKkKlansman-hate-self-hate-characters-on-the-couch

BLACKkKLANSMAN
Standing Up To Hate & Self-Hate
1970 Is Now

August 16, 2018 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman is a brilliant, terrifying, and timely treatise on hate. The film tells Ron Stallworth’s true early 1970’s story (played by John David Washington): a courageous, harrowing, but ultimately foiled effort to expose the KKK and its virulent racial hate. Fuel it’s fires and hate justifies violence. Then is now: 1970 is 2018. Hate …

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Standing Up To Hate & Self-Hate
1970 Is Now
Girls Hannah's OCD #4 The help I'd give Hannah

GIRLS OCD #4
Help I’d Give Hannah
Since I’m Not Dr. Rice

May 28, 2015 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Dr. Rice didn’t get Hannah at all. Season 2, It’s Back, leaves Hannah obsessively counting in 8’s. She needs a different kind of help. If Hannah was in therapy with me, I’d listen closely to her conflicting and ever-shifting feelings. To her “I need your help. No, I’m fine.” “I’m sad. No, I’m not.” This …

Read moreGIRLS OCD #4
Help I’d Give Hannah
Since I’m Not Dr. Rice
While We're Young What Josh's Alter Ego Teaches HIm

WHILE WE’RE YOUNG
What Josh’s Alter Ego Teaches Him

May 26, 2015 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young is much more than a look at how youth wants to outdo the old. How the older envy youth. Or, how a mid-life crisis leads to all kinds of desperate shenanigans. It’s also the story of 40-something Josh (Ben Stiller) who can’t move forward for complex psychological reasons. And, of …

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What Josh’s Alter Ego Teaches Him
Girls & Hannah's OCD

GIRLS
OCD # 1 Hannah’s Counting
Why The Number 8?

May 4, 2015 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

This is the first in a series of 4 Posts. What’s in Girls & Hannah’s OCD? The word OCD is tossed around too casually in our contemporary culture – as in “I’m so OCD” to mean “I’m a perfectionist.” Or “I like to have things organized and controlled.” Sure, those things can be true of people who …

Read moreGIRLS
OCD # 1 Hannah’s Counting
Why The Number 8?

Inspiration

“We come to Film and TV to find our hidden stories. If we look deeply into a character’s psyche, there is much to see about ourselves.”

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