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Characters On The Couch

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

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12 years a slave what makes some people crueler?

12 YEARS A SLAVE
What Makes Some People Crueler?

August 1, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Some people need someone to hate. In Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay, “Anti-Semite and Jew,” he says: “If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.” I don’t think it’s a far leap to put the history of Blacks in America in the same category. The important question is why? Why does this need to …

Read more12 YEARS A SLAVE
What Makes Some People Crueler?
her-characters-on-the-couch

HER
Fantasy Relationship 3.0

August 1, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Spike Jonze is interested in loneliness. His new film, Her, is a semi-futuristic exploration of one lonely man’s struggle to learn what love is and what love is not. Here’s what we know about Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix). He has a broken heart. His marriage to Catherine has come to a devastatingly sad end. At BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com, …

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Fantasy Relationship 3.0
Gravity Grave Losses Fight or Flight?

GRAVITY
Grave Losses: Fight or Flight?

August 1, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Life In Space Is Impossible What kind of beautiful and terrifying space does Gravity tell us about? The vast reaches of outer space, to be sure. Alfonso Cuaron’s film, Gravity, is a cinematographically beautiful cliffhanger of a space odyssey. Yet, there is a compelling psychological subtext: the gravity of Dr. Ryan Stone’s unresolved grief. What …

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Grave Losses: Fight or Flight?
PHILOMENA Triumph over Shame

PHILOMENA
Triumph Over Shame

August 1, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness … (T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets) Shame ravages. It eats away at you. It makes you collapse into yourself and live with secrets – seemingly too shameful to tell. Philomena Lee’s (Judi Dench) story is the story of …

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Triumph Over Shame
NEBRASKA Money or Love? Which is the Real Prize?

NEBRASKA
Money or Love? What’s the Prize?

August 1, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

What does a son do when he feels his dad doesn’t love him? Either silently withdraw or take the road trip of his life to just spend a little time together. Director Alexander Payne has done it brilliantly again. Nebraska isn’t the road trip we took in Sideways. It’s a father-son road trip, and a touchingly redemptive ride …

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Money or Love? What’s the Prize?
August: Osage County Can a Child Survive a Mother's Hate?

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY
Is A Mother’s Hate Survivable?

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

 A mother’s hate inflicts the worst kind of suffering. There’s not one child among the main characters in August: Osage County who escapes. Not Violet, not Mattie Faye, not Barbara, Karen, Ivey, or even little Charles. Most of the film’s immediate suffering is at the hands of Violet Westin, the cruel matriarch of the Westin family. …

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Is A Mother’s Hate Survivable?
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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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