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Characters On The Couch

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

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anger

the last black man in san francisco mother's abandonment

THE LAST BLACK MAN
IN SAN FRANCISCO
When There’s No Home
In A Mother’s Heart

July 24, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

What are the basic ingredients in Joe Talbot and Jimmie Fails’s The Last Black Man In San Francisco? An old Victorian house. A young man who has no home. A mother who abandoned him and can’t keep him in her heart. A necessary fantasy. A Greek Chorus (that speaks the anger, hate, and under it, …

Read moreTHE LAST BLACK MAN
IN SAN FRANCISCO
When There’s No Home
In A Mother’s Heart
Losing Ground When a call to Mama is unanswered

LOSING GROUND
When A Call For ‘Mama’
Is Unanswered

May 4, 2016 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

What is lurking below the surface of a highly intellectualized philosophy professor’s emotional control? We find out in Losing Ground, filmed in 1982 but recently released by Milestone Films, noteworthy for being the first feature-length film produced and directed by a Black American woman. Kathleen Collins, who died an early death of cancer in 1988, …

Read moreLOSING GROUND
When A Call For ‘Mama’
Is Unanswered
ROOM How Does Therapy Find Words For Wordless Trauma?

ROOM
How Does Therapy Find Words
For Wordless Trauma?

February 18, 2016 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Emma Donoghue’s film, ROOM, takes us directly into the emotional experience of trauma. As the film opens, we hear a little boy’s voice introducing us to a girl named Ma. Kidnapped, stolen from her life, and kept in ROOM for seven years, Ma lives in a world as incomprehensible as Alice’s …

Read moreROOM
How Does Therapy Find Words
For Wordless Trauma?
What Happened Miss Simone No Rest For A Love Starved Girl

WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?
No Rest For
A Love-Starved Girl

October 14, 2015 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

What Happened, Miss Simone, Liz Garbus’ documentary of the brilliant and troubled Nina Simone’s life, ends by diagnosing Miss Simone with bipolar disorder. Does that explain her outrageous behavior? I don’t think so. Those with bipolar disorder are taken over by extremes of moods. But, in my experience, there’s much more to being bipolar than …

Read moreWHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?
No Rest For
A Love-Starved Girl

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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