I first heard the phrase “an itch to scratch” from the creators/writers of Better Call Saul. When they were expanding and deepening the “Saul” character from Breaking Bad, they needed to change a comedic side character into a fully rounded lead character. And Vince Giligan said that an early ...

The 15th Annual Drunk Duck Awards are taking off and the ride is only going to get more tubular from here—Come one, come all! Every Duck is invited to participate. This year’s awards theme “At the Therapist” was brainstormed by Tantz Aerine, “in which a door that leads ...

And so we have arrived to the juicy stuff- Evil Psychologists!

You'd be surprised, but there have been a LOT of those in real life. It's the reason that the ethics code and penalization if that code is broken is so severe for professionals in the mental health ...

Therapists are the type of character whose occupation can easily seep into their ‘off the clock’ life. It's not something that can often be helped. Psychologists don't ‘turn off’ their perception of behavioral patterns and personality analyses, the same way you can't ‘unsee’ the rabbits after you ...

I've already written a bunch of articles on writing mental illness, so I figured I should write about writing therapists as well!

Oh, the woes for therapist representation in narrative works! All the stereotypes are there: from the shrink that is actually a little (or a lot) loopy and ...

Here is the scene:

It is pitch black, sitting in a movie theater, the lights go out and the feature film is only minutes away from beginning. The trailers begin playing and the first one is half way memorable. Then the next trailer comes on and I see a man ...

There may be times along this path of being a content creator, where you feel that you are moving backwards; that your work is not worth looking at and that you feel like a phony trying to even attempt it. “Real life” may be calling and you have no choice ...

Having discussed a general approach to writing characters with mental disorders (with a lot of thoughtful comments by you further enriching what I had to say!) it's only right that we wrap up this very quick analysis with an example of a story that properly portrays them.

I chose ...

How to Pick, Research and Implement Mental Disorder in a Character

So last time I talked in general about some basic concepts and principles about what constitutes mental illness, or, more accurately, mental disorder. The important thing to remember and keep from all of that is this set of truths ...

This is a dark story about the secret life of Doctor Michael Jones. Real dark. It explores the twisted mind of a hospital worker turned serial killer and his unorthodox therapist who shows little concern after hearing Jones' incriminating confession. Wicked Games examines the fine line between euthanasia in hospitals ...