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Characters On The Couch

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

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inability to grieve

Lessons From ‘The Mandalorian’: When Childhood Attachments Go Wrong, Is Feeling Nothing, ‘The Way?’

Lessons From ‘The Mandalorian’
Childhood Attachments Go Wrong
Is Feeling Nothing, ‘The Way?’

March 15, 2021 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

When attachments go wrong in early life, you have to toughen up. But is feeling nothing “The Way?” If you thought it was, what does it take to break free and allow love? This was the question for Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars and it’s the question for Mando, The Mandalorian, who also lost his beloved parents …

Read moreLessons From ‘The Mandalorian’
Childhood Attachments Go Wrong
Is Feeling Nothing, ‘The Way?’
Winter Light Ingmar Bergman 1963 A Man Who Cannot Need Cannot Love

WINTER LIGHT
Ingmar Bergman (1963)
A Man Who Need Cannot Love

June 6, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Reverend Tomas Ericsson is a man who cannot need. And, because he can’t, he struggles with both God and love. Tomas over and over coldly rejects his desperately loving former lover, Marta. Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light 1963, slowly reveals the source of his loss of faith. Tomas loved his dead wife: “When she died, so …

Read moreWINTER LIGHT
Ingmar Bergman (1963)
A Man Who Need Cannot Love
LOLITA PATHOLOGICAL REACTIONS TO LOSS INABILITY TO GRIEVE GRIEF

LOLITA
Humbert & Lolita?
Pathological Reactions To Loss

May 8, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

We’ve all been intrigued with Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita since the classic film arrived on the scene in 1962. But, isn’t the burning question: Is there more to understand about Humbert and Lolita beyond, “he’s a pedophile and she’s a troubled 14-year-old seductress?” The answer is yes, there’s plenty. Believe it or not, both have pathological …

Read moreLOLITA
Humbert & Lolita?
Pathological Reactions To Loss
The Phantom of The Opera A Girl Who Can't Grieve Her Dead Father

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
A Girl Who Can’t Grieve
Her Dead Father

September 8, 2015 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Loss can be a dead place. If you move forward, you’ll know the person you love is gone. As I sat spellbound in the Majestic Theater watching the brilliant performances of James Barbour as Phantom and Julia Udine as Christine Daad, I knew that The Phantom Of The Opera isn’t only the story of a …

Read moreTHE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
A Girl Who Can’t Grieve
Her Dead Father

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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