acceptance – Superhero Therapy

The psychology of Shannara: Using the Elfstones

By Jay Scarlet

The recent announcement that MTV has decided to renew The Shannara Chronicles for a season 2, along with the apparent likelihood that the new season will continue to follow the same characters (rather than skipping straight to adapting the next book in Terry Brooks’ Shannara series, which features the next generation of heroes), means that writers of the television show will have an opportunity to delve more into some of the psychological nuance that pervades the novels. In no case is this more necessary than in that of Wil Ohmsford and his use of the Elfstones.

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How X-Men helped me overcome PTSD

“What wouldn’t I give to be normal!”

(Mystique, ‘X-Men First Class’)

I grew up on fiction. It was brain food to me. I generally preferred to read books to just about any other activity. Over the past few years I’ve been incorporating fictional characters into Superhero Therapy. For me these characters hold a deep and personal meaning, after all, some of them actually helped me recover from my own traumatic history.

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Next to Normal: a beautiful play about mental illness

For the longest time mental illness was considered a taboo, in many cultures it is something that is not discussed or accepted, leaving the people that are most in need of support and compassion to be alone and ashamed of their condition. Traditionally the media, including news, films, plays, and books have portrayed people with mental illness as villains, adding to the already existing stigma. And at a time when we are just starting to understand where some mental disorders come from and how we might be able to treat or attenuate them, a production like “Next to Normal” serves as a wonderful tool for giving us the insight into one of the most misunderstood diagnoses – Bipolar Disorder.

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

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Psychology Behind Doctor Who: Deep Breath

I’ve never fallen in love with The Doctor as quickly as I did with Peter Capaldi. There were so many psychological themes in the first episode of Season 8, Deep Breath, that I felt instantly connected to him and found him extremely relatable. Below is my review of the episode from a psychological standpoint. WARNING: CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS, CLICK TO READ MORE IF YOU DARE

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