• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail

Characters On The Couch

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

  • Home
  • Blog
  • About Sandra E. Cohen, PhD
  • Entertainment Consulting
  • Psychology & Story
  • Leo Hurwitz’s Documentaries
  • Contact

loss

JOJO RABBIT Why A Boy Needs Hitler As His Imaginary Friend

JOJO RABBIT
Why A Boy Needs Adolf Hitler
As His Imaginary Friend

February 9, 2020 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

When you’re a scared little boy in the middle of a war and your father’s missing, Adolf Hitler can become your best friend. That is, in your mind at least. And, why not? He’s the man with the most power in all of Germany. What better friend to help you stand up to your fears? …

Read moreJOJO RABBIT
Why A Boy Needs Adolf Hitler
As His Imaginary Friend
Brooklyn How Love Heals Homesickness & A Difficult Mother

BROOKLYN
How Love Heals Homesickness
& A Difficult Mother

January 3, 2020 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Has it really been 4 years since John Crowley and Nick Hornby’s film, Brooklyn, hit the big screen? And, why is it still a movie that speaks to us and that we keep going back to? Is it because it’s the versatile and talented Saorise Ronan’s first major film? Or because we all know, somewhere …

Read moreBROOKLYN
How Love Heals Homesickness
& A Difficult Mother
A Man and A Woman Old Grief Can Interfere with New Love

A MAN AND A WOMAN 1966
Old Grief Can Interfere With New Love

October 2, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Even beautiful love stories have their complications when grieving for an old love isn’t over. Claude Lelouch’s captivating film A Man And A Woman 1966 has a lot to say about what it takes not to turn away from a new chance to fall in love. It’s in the story Jean-Louis tells Anne early in …

Read moreA MAN AND A WOMAN 1966
Old Grief Can Interfere With New Love
the nightingale hate revenge grief and unexpected empathy

THE NIGHTINGALE
What A Well-Crafted Film Tells
About Hate, Revenge, Grief
& Unexpected Empathy

August 3, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Forgiveness is overrated. Understanding is not. And, there’s much to understand in Jennifer Kent’s riveting, violently troubling, and powerful new film, The Nightingale; about trauma, PTSD, unbearable grief, and the sometimes unimaginable sources of empathy. No, no one should ever be expected to forgive their abusers. “Forgiveness” for sadistic cruelty isn’t healing. What helps is …

Read moreTHE NIGHTINGALE
What A Well-Crafted Film Tells
About Hate, Revenge, Grief
& Unexpected Empathy
summer with monika reality ends idyllic summer love

SUMMER WITH MONIKA
(Ingmar Bergman, 1953)
Reality & Childhood Trauma
Ends An Idyllic Summer Love

March 27, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Summer love on a deserted island isn’t real life. That’s the Gordian knot in Bergman’s 1953 Summer With Monika. This erotic and heartbreaking film tells the story of two adolescents caught in the throes of an idyllic love. It’s a love they both long for, given their troubled and sad early lives. And also an escape …

Read moreSUMMER WITH MONIKA
(Ingmar Bergman, 1953)
Reality & Childhood Trauma
Ends An Idyllic Summer Love
Wild Strawberries, Ingmar Bergman, Cold Mother and a Sentence To A Lonely Life

WILD STRAWBERRIES
(Ingmar Bergman 1957)
Cold Mother Stops Emotional Time
& Sentences A Boy To Loneliness

March 18, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

“One sleeps in one’s childhood’s shoes,” Bergman remembers Swedish poet Maria Wine, saying, and “that was the real starting point of Wild Strawberries.” (p. 212*) It’s true. And, some live inside the echoes of a cold mother. Every psychoanalyst knows how our childhoods slumber within each waking and dreaming moment of our lives, creating their …

Read moreWILD STRAWBERRIES
(Ingmar Bergman 1957)
Cold Mother Stops Emotional Time
& Sentences A Boy To Loneliness
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 6
  • Next →

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

The Power of the Dog Why Phil Burbank’s Cruelty is About What He Hates in Himself
SOUND OF METAL How Silence Stops A Man From Running
The Father Dementia and The Fight To Hold Onto Who He Was

Copyright © 2023 · Sandra E. Cohen, Ph.D. · All Rights Reserved