Master's Thesis from the year 2023 in the subject Psychology - Clinical Psychology, Psychopathology, Prevention, grade: 2.0, , language: English, abstract: In the realm of scientific inquiry, the Star Wars saga emerges as a unique and enduring subject of study, captivating the intellectual curiosity of millions worldwide. This paper delves into the Skywalker family, utilizing psychotherapy and film analysis to illuminate the interplay of psychological trauma, family dynamics, and resilience. The Star Wars narrative transcends cinematic entertainment, offering insights into the human condition. Film as a storytelling medium allows for empathetic engagement with characters' experiences, serving as a tool to comprehend the psychological dimensions of the Skywalker family, underpinned by Lothar Mikos's critical film analysis. This paper defines trauma, emphasizing transgenerational trauma and epigenetics, highlighting its influence on the characters. It explores family dynamics through attachment theory and family therapy, alongside resilience's role in overcoming adversity. The research adopts a systemic family therapy perspective, employing a genogram to depict family dynamics. Character analyses of key Skywalker family members, from Anakin Skywalker to Princess Leia Organa, unveil the psychological depths of these iconic characters. In the third generation, the paper assesses Ben Solo's (Kylo Ren) psychological journey, tracing the impact of family history and his path to redemption. This study offers a profound analysis of the Skywalker family, drawing from psychology, film analysis, and systemic family therapy. It sheds light on enduring themes within the Star Wars universe, revealing the profound psychological dimensions that make it a cherished narrative through the lens of psychotherapy and film analysis.

The revenge motif appears in a number of arenas and in different cultures. We need to be mindful of its existence in order to discover how common it is. We can then learn to recognize when destructive revenge spirals are developing. By extension, we thus gain a basis for stopping these spirals successfully before they have gone too far. We can also learn what function revenge plays and has played in various contexts. A short overview of revenge as a motif in literature, film, culture, religion, and at work is therefore given as an introduction to our study of revenge.

Tom Cruise is a Hollywood superstar like no other. World famous since his debut in the 1980s, he remains among the highest paid actors. Why has his persona resonated so powerfully with millions of viewers? Using psychoanalytic theory, "Tom Cruise: Performing Masculinity in Post Vietnam Hollywood" demonstrates how his star persona sublimates anxieties about masculinity. Amid Reagan-era military jingoism and concern over declining industrial labour, he represented a new model of American masculinity based on white-collar upward mobility. Spanning blockbuster films such as Risky Business (1983), Jerry Maguire (1996) and the Mission: Impossible series (1996 - 2011), this book illustrates how his characters exemplify entrepreneurialism, charisma, technological gadgetry and verbal acuity to redefine male success. His newly emotive type - 'help me help you' - also successfully overcomes interpersonal conflicts with patriarchal authority and senior women in the workplace, and navigates race relations. The first scholarly study of Tom Cruise's celebrity, this book surveys his entire career and builds on Richard Dyer's 'star theory.' It develops the core dynamic of his star persona, a mix of projected character traits and 'real life' trivia or gossip, and establishes that his box office success reflects his persona's ability to work through the psychodynamic preoccupations of his films. This exceptional appeal evolved, at times characterised by complicity with 1980s materialistic hedonism (Taps, 1981), male spectacle (Magnolia, 1999), or his use of martial technology (War of the Worlds, 2005), and their attendant psychic meanings. Recent shifts in American culture, however, in tandem with Tom Cruise's growing evangelism for the Church of Scientology, may be threatening his appeal. Ultimately, this book offers a picture of how stars reflect the values and crises of their societies, and fills a substantial gap in scholarship on celebrity studies, critical cultural analysis, masculinity studies, and film theory.