Psychology of Classic and Cultural Films

A psychologist explores One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: institutional power, control versus care, conformity, institutionalization, and the complicated history of psychiatric abuse.

2 min read

A psychologist explores Forrest Gump: how childhood sexual abuse shaped Jenny, the patterns of self-sabotage and trauma, the contrast with secure Forrest, and the limits of what love alone can heal.

1 min read

A psychologist explores Frankenstein: abandonment at the moment of coming into being, attachment rupture, how neglect produces rage, and the need to be received by the one who made us.

2 min read

A psychologist explores Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: the divided self, dissociation, repression and the return of the repressed, and the danger of splitting off our shadow rather than integrating it.

2 min read

A psychologist explores The Shawshank Redemption: institutionalization, the dangers and the necessity of hope, meaning under confinement, and the work of keeping a self alive.

2 min read

A psychologist explores The Sound of Music: how unprocessed grief can freeze a family into rigid silence, and how warmth, music, and emotional expression thaw the feeling that allows a family to heal.

2 min read

A psychologist explores The Godfather: how corruption proceeds in small steps, how family loyalty becomes a justification for evil, lost potential, and the cost a person pays for power.

2 min read

A psychologist explores Rocky: the wound to self-worth, the difference between winning and going the distance, internal versus external validation, and reclaiming dignity through your own effort and endurance.

From 1930s radio through the quiz show scandals to today, the first in a series on why certain media formats never stop working on us.

Why a story told at a bedside comforts, what revenge does to the person carrying it, and the strange emptiness of finally getting what you spent your life chasing.

The problem-and-promise structure, the machinery of persuasion, price theater, and why urgency is engineered to bypass judgment.

Variable reward, a feed with no stopping cue, and novelty engineered to capture attention. What is actually known, and what is not.