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Characters On The Couch

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

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love

Love Actually What Does It Take To Get Through Love's Obstacles & Keep Hope Alive

LOVE ACTUALLY
What Does It Take To
Get Through Love’s Obstacles
& Keep Hope Alive?

December 30, 2020 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Richard Curtis’ 2003 film classic, Love Actually, is the ultimate Christmas ROM-COM. After all, the Christmas holiday-time is the season of love, romance, and family. But, what if you couldn’t be with family because of the pandemic? Or love isn’t working very well with the stresses of quarantine? Or maybe you’ve run into love’s inevitable …

Read moreLOVE ACTUALLY
What Does It Take To
Get Through Love’s Obstacles
& Keep Hope Alive?
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
If Beale Street Could Talk - I Got You Kind Of Love

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
That “I Got You” Kind Of Love
The Best Remedy For Hate, Helplessness & Despair

March 14, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

The River’s family’s “I Got You” kind of love is If Beale Street Could Talk’s most potent reminder of exactly what transcends hate, helplessness, and despair. We see it when Tish’s dad holds her: “I got you, baby, I got you.” When Tish says to her newborn son: “I got you. I got you. I …

Read moreIF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
That “I Got You” Kind Of Love
The Best Remedy For Hate, Helplessness & Despair
the-green-book-life-friendship-love-characters-on-the-couch

THE GREEN BOOK
What Do 2 Unlikely Travel Companions Teach Each Other
About Life & Friendship & Love?

February 3, 2019 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Peter Farrelly’s The Green Book poses a challenging question: what do 2 unlikely road companions possibly have to teach each other? A lot … even about friendship and love. But, with all their obvious differences, it’s an emotionally rocky road trip to get there. One of the 2 is Dr. Donald Shirley, a classically trained …

Read moreTHE GREEN BOOK
What Do 2 Unlikely Travel Companions Teach Each Other
About Life & Friendship & Love?
Crazy Rich Asians How to Be The Winner Over A Boyfriend's Mother's Envy?

CRAZY RICH ASIANS
How To Be The Winner
Over A Boyfriend’s Mother’s Envy

September 3, 2018 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Jon Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians is about crazy wealth. But it’s really about so much more. It’s about the clashes between old money and new; privilege and disadvantage; American-born Asians and those calling Asia home; between following passion and giving into duty. Mostly it’s about a boyfriend’s mother’s envy. And, at the film’s center, we …

Read moreCRAZY RICH ASIANS
How To Be The Winner
Over A Boyfriend’s Mother’s Envy
call-me-by-your-name- I-am-you-you-are-me-I-will-find-myself-in-you-characters-on-the-couch

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
I Will Find Myself In You
Will I Feel Everything?

March 15, 2018 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Desire is what director, Luca Guadagnino, hoped to convey in Call Me By Your Name – the kind of desire that allows you to live life by following your feelings with openness. Guadagnino calls this: “living with a sense of joie de vivre”, in which, he says: “we should always be very earnest with [our] …

Read moreCALL ME BY YOUR NAME
I Will Find Myself In You
Will I Feel Everything?
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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.”

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