A man enters his psychoanalyst’s office and lies on the couch. Staring alternately at the ceiling and at the window in front of him, he begins to speak freely. At first he skims the surface of his private thoughts—ideas and experiences he has formerly kept to himself.

“Brinkley is my dog. He loves the streets of New York as much as I do, although he likes to eat bits of pizza and bagel off the sidewalk and I prefer to buy them. Brinkley is a great catcher, was offered a tryout on the Mets’ farm team, but he chose to stay with me so that he could spend eighteen hours a day sleeping on a large green pillow the size of an inner tube. Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms.”

The man is Joe Fox, one of the central characters in the film, You’ve Got Mail. He is not lying on an analyst’s couch, but in certain respects he could be. Continue reading “You’ve Got [Mail] Transference”

Click Here to Read:  Review of the film Martha Marcy May Marlene by Virginia R. Youngren, Ph.D. Attending Psychologist, Department of Psychiatry
Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Clinical Instructor, Harvard Medical School; and Co-Chair of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute Film Committee, felicitously named “Off the Couch.”