International Psychoanalysis

Click Here to Read:  Mortensen replaces Waltz as Freud on the Independent website on March 11, 2010.

Viggo Mortensen

Click Here To Read:   Roadkill, Review of Two Films about Aileen Wourmos, reviewed by Harvey Roy Greenberg.  Monster,  Aileen Wourmos: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer, and the Selling of Aileen Wourmos, and most of the other films cited in Dr. Greenberg’s reviews are available either through Netflix, Ebay, or  Amazon.com, as well as special internet sites.  Dr. Harvey Roy Greenberg, Clinical Professor of  Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, publishes widely on cinema, media, and popular culture. Other reviews and essays can be found at his  website,  http://www.doctorgreenberg.net.   Dr. Greenberg welcomes comment, criticism, and further discussion, of his reviews.

by Herbert H. Stein

The Horse Whisperer begins with trauma for both the film’s protagonists and for its audience, which is forced to watch a particularly disturbing accident. The rest of the film is devoted to healing that trauma and the traumata of the unconscious fantasies it represents. (more…)

Click Here To Read: The Summer of Aviya on the Contemporary Psychoanalytic Musings blog of Tampa Bay Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies on February 15, 2010.

This was published in the PANY Bulletin, Spring, 2002. Obviously it was influenced by 9/11. It also refers to a spate of films at that time spurred by virtual reality, a theme that has been taken up again with the release of Avatar. It links with last month’s “Christmas post” in the reference to Anna Freud’s The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense.

“The suspicion and asceticism of the ego are primarily directed against the subject’s fixation to all the love objects of his childhood. The result of this is … that the young person tends to isolate himself; from this time on, he will live with the members of his family as though with strangers.” (A. Freud, 1936 p. 166)

“… you look around, what do you see—businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters, the very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy.” (The Matrix) (more…)

Click Here To Read:  The Blank Page: The Institute Of Psychoanalysis’ 2010 Screening Conditions Programme Launches With Exploration of Literature in Film World Press Release Websiste on the January 9th, 2010.

Click Here To Read: Reel or real? Trans World Features on the India Blooms Website on January 8, 2010. 

 Click Here To Read:  The Movies On My Mind:  Devilish Appeal: Review of Reversal of Fortune,  directed by Barbet Schroeder, Reviewed by Harvey Roy Greenberg. Reversal of Fortune and most of the other films cited in Dr. Greenberg’s review are available either through Netflix, Ebay, or  Amazon.com, as well as special internet sites.  Dr. Harvey Roy Greenberg, Clinical Professor of  Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, publishes widely on cinema, media, and popular culture. Other reviews and essays can be found at his  website,  http://www.doctorgreenberg.net.   Dr. Greenberg welcomes comment, criticism, and further discussion, of his reviews.

Click Here to View:  Argentina in Therapy: Trailor Film on You Tube.

Click Here To View: Argentina in Therapy: Pre-Title Sequence

Published in the PANY Bulletin Fall, 2009

For the past few winters, my teaching schedule has me reading Anna Freud’s monograph, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense at around the same time that I come  across the Christmas classic, Miracle on 34th Street. One wouldn’t think that they have much in common, but each year I am re-reminded of passages in the book that come to life in the film. (more…)

Click Here To Read:  The White Hotel, Brittany Murphy’s Cursed, Unmade Project by Karina Longworthin Vanity Fair on December 21, 2009.

Click Here to Read:  Absorbing analysis of Chaplin’s appalling childhood by Stephen Dixon in the Irish Times on December 21, 2009, a review of Stephen Weissman’s Chaplin: A Life

Click Here To Read:  3 Other Reviews of Stephen Weissman’ s Chaplin: A Life on this website.

Click Here to Read: Review of Stephen Weissman’ s Chaplin: A Life in the Boston Globe, on this website.

Click Here To View:  Clips from films in the Institute of Psychoanalysis season:  The Institute of Psychoanalysis is running a season of film screenings at London’s ICA exploring drug addiction and mental health. Here are clips from four of the selected films

Click Here To Read:  Precious: A Psychoanalytic Perspective By Shirah Vollmer on the Everyday Psychology website on December 9, 2009.

Click Here To Read:   Played to Death: The Dresser, directed by Peter Yates, reviewed by Harvey Roy Greenberg.  The Dresser, and most of the other films cited in Dr. Greenberg’s reviews, are available either through Netflix, Ebay, or Amazon.com, as well as special internet sites.  Dr. Harvey Roy Greenberg, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, publishes widely on cinema, media, and popular culture. Other reviews and essays can be found at his  website,  http://www.doctorgreenberg.net.   Dr. Greenberg welcomes comment, criticism, and further discussion, of his reviews.

Click Here to Read:  The Western Genre Its Sympotomatic Meanings, review of the Searchers, The Unforgiven, and other Westerns by Justin Richards.

In Clint Eastwood’s film, Unforgiven, he plays a familiar role, a psychopathic killer hero.  In this film, however, he appears to take an introspective approach to his character and those who admire his character.  In the process, the film allows us an opportunity to examine some of the dynamics of killing and of our interest in seeing it on the screen.  Ultimately, it provides us with another fantasy designed to defeat death.

The film centers around William Munny, played by Eastwood.  In a prologue, and in the early scenes of the film, we learn that he had been an outlaw and killer, but had been reformed by his wife, Claudia.  She had died in 1878 of small pox, two to three years before the action of the film, leaving Munny with the care of his young son and daughter.

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It seems that the subject of war trauma and its psychological effects have been forefront in the news as we debate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and hear stories of personal tragedy. I wrote this commentary on Saving Private Ryan shortly after it came out, but unfortunately it remains timely.

I have worked for many years as the director of an outpatient program for combat veterans at a local VA hospital. When Saving Private Ryan was showing in the theaters, I advised combat veterans not to see it, on the theory that they were seeing enough combat in their dreams and memories, and told everyone else to see it, particularly if they wanted to better understand the effects of combat trauma. The film could well be used as a primer for understanding the “affects” of combat. (more…)

Click Here to Read:   APOCALYPSE WHEN? : The Rapture (1991), directed by Michael Tolkin, Reviewed by Harvey Roy Greenberg. The Rapture and most of the other films cited in Dr. Greenberg’s review are available either through Netflix, Ebay, or Amazon.com, as well as special internet sites.  Dr. Harvey Roy Greenberg, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, publishes widely on cinema, media, and popular culture. Other reviews and essays can be found at his  website,  http://www.doctorgreenberg.net.   Dr. Greenberg welcomes comment, criticism, and further discussion, of his reviews.

Click Here To Read:   Lust, Caution,  a film directed by Ang Lie reviewed by Anita Weinreb Katz.