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Characters On The Couch

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

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Vice: Tyrants, Bullies, & Childhood Trauma

VICE
Tyrants & Bullies
What Do These 2 Have To Do With Childhood Trauma?

February 11, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

What makes someone greedy; heartless; manipulative; and corrupt? So hungry for power that anything goes; even law; morality; & a daughter? Adam McCay’s Vice doesn’t answer questions of what or why. Vice tells the story of who and how. Yet, let’s for a moment think about Dick and Lynne Cheney as two parts of one …

Read moreVICE
Tyrants & Bullies
What Do These 2 Have To Do With Childhood Trauma?
The Big Short Danger of Living in Bubbles & Fooling Ourselves

THE BIG SHORT
Danger Of Living In Bubbles
& Fooling Ourselves

February 10, 2016 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

The Big Short, directed by Adam McKay, starring Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, and Brad Pitt, tells more than the story of the U.S. housing bubble from 2001 to 2005. More than the story of risky advantages taken by mortgage companies, hedge funds, and investment bankers to profit from it. I’m a psychoanalyst, not an …

Read moreTHE BIG SHORT
Danger Of Living In Bubbles
& Fooling Ourselves
American Hustle Poisonous Choices to Survive

AMERICAN HUSTLE
Do You Have to Make a Poisonous Choice to Survive?

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

David O. Russell’s American Hustle is a cinematic treatise on the complexities of survival. Irving Rosenfeld, Sydney Prosser (AKA Lady Edith Greensley), Richie DiMaso, and Rosalyn Rosenfeld are each, in their own uniquely perverse and destructive ways, just trying to survive. But, are they? If we remove ourselves from the intrigue of the hustle itself (based upon the …

Read moreAMERICAN HUSTLE
Do You Have to Make a Poisonous Choice to Survive?

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.”

Recent Posts

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