Il Sorpasso 1962 – The Easy Life

Jean-Louis Trintignant and Vittorio Gassman

This movie came out the year I was born. It is a road movie or a coming of age film for two young men. Bruno (Vittorio Gassman – Italian) is an aging player, and Roberto (Jean-Louis Trintignant – French) a very down to earth college boy, studying law. Roberto is eager to remain the man that he is, but soon finds himself questioning life. He seems to have a love/hate relationship with Bruno, who he knows is not a good person deep down inside. Bruno, for whatever reason is escaping reality. We don’t really know his back story, though we know that he jumped into marriage with a beautiful woman and left her and their daughter to continuing roaming through life. At the end, both of these men’s lives will be turned upside down and Bruno himself will finally begin to question the life he has chosen.

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Soul Collage Workshop in Columbus, Ohio

This is a wonderful workshop that I will be co-presenting with MJ Abell who is a Soul Collage Facilitator. There will be materials available to make the cards – which you will take with you, light refreshments and camaraderie with like minded people. If you live in Columbus, I hope to see you there.

Q. Is this in-person? yes

Q. Do I need to be creative or artistic? no, this is not an art class, it is a creative workshop and you will guided to choosing the pictures that are right for you.

Q. Is this therapy? no, it is not group therapy it is a soul collage workshop and I am there only to briefly discuss narcissism, answer your questions and support you in your process.

Q. Do I have to be a survivor or what does this mean? The workshop will encompass people who are victims (still in the relationship), trauma bond (out but hoping to get back in) and survivors (those who are out and no they won’t go back but still want to work on this issue).

Q. What is soul collage? https://soulcollage.com/

Any other questions, please feel free to contact me at transformpsych@outlook.com

Virginia Roberts Giuffre – Nobody’s Girl

People magazine

This book was probably the hardest and most challenging book for me to read. Not because of what she suffered, I was a social worker for 8 years and read hundreds of reports about child molest, dealt with clients who were trafficked, girls who were used as prostitutes on the street. It was the “Why” that kept nagging in the back of my head. Why was this incredibly, or seemingly strong woman having a book published posthumously? Why did she die by suicide? As a psychotherapist, I kept searching for answers throughout the book, and I walked away feeling as if I understood what they were.

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Virginia Roberts Giuffre Explains My Book, Posthumously

Yesterday morning, 12/1/25, I published an ebook, seen above through Books2Read. Last night, while reading “Nobody’s Girl,” By Virginia Roberts Giuffre, I was caught off guard by a passage she wrote in her book on pages 113-114. I thought to myself, Wow! I wish I had known she wrote this amazing explanation, as it is better than mine. It explains what I am capturing in this title from a survivors perspective. Or, to put it more bluntly “From the horses mouth.” She loved horses, so I think she would appreciate this.

I want to include the passage here for your own discovery and so that you might consider reading her book – to learn more, as well as reading my book for the emotional support. I will come back here, when I am finished reading Nobody’s Girl as I want to pay tribute to this very well written book. For now:

It probably goes without saying that, given what my father and his friend Forrest had done to me when I was a child, being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell was painfully triggering. To the extent that I saw the two of them as pseudo-parental figures, their disregard for my welfare as they lent me out for sex made me feel a familiar strain of worthlessness. But at times, that familiarity was weirdly comforting. This is complicated to explain, but that echo of past hurts was somehow bearable to me because I’d felt it-and somehow endured it-so many times before. It was like finding myself once more in a room I’d lived in for years. I hated that room, but I knew its contours-the shape of its windows, the nap of its carpet beneath my feet, the click of the door lock when it was thrown. I knew I could exist in that room because I’d existed there before. At that point, at least, this made me feel less afraid.

This is what I am trying to express in my title “The Uncomfortable Comfortableness with a Narcissist.” The familiarity was/is weirdly comforting and Virginia goes on to add how her visual and audio senses are enlisted by her hatred for this comfortableness. The shape of the windows, the nap of the carpet on her feet, the click of the door lock. She knew how to be in that place, as it was so familiar. Since it was so familiar, she wasn’t even as afraid.

In my book, I am helping you to discover the different parts of our self that are employed as our agency is taken away, while we are being lured into a relationship with the narcissist. Unsuspectingly – at first – yet somehow very comforting, very familiar, very Déjà vu. Once you are in, the uncomfortable knowledge that OMG! I am here again. Now what?

No worries, I am providing you with psycho-education to become more conscious of this process, along with six helpful homework assignments to begin re-discovering your sense of self. When you use these tools, along with a psychotherapist of your choosing, whom you can find to support you on this journey, these are the keys to moving forward in your life. To having a healthy relationship and never going back to the uncomfortable comfortableness ever again.

The Uncomfortable Comfortableness

My ebook is finally here and I can’t wait for you to read it and provide a review to help others who are struggling with this topic. You can find the book at Books2Read through a variety of your favorite ebook publishers. Today is the first day, so if you don’t see your favorite publisher yet, it may be there tomorrow. Hoopla will take a couple of weeks so please be patient!

Uncomfortable Comfortableness is an easy read-in-one-day, with six wonderful homework assignments to keep you thinking. I have been working on this for many months at the same time preparing workshops on this very same topic. It finally occurred to me, I needed something quick and easy. A book that gets right to the point. Another therapist came up with a similar concept – quick and easy for couples. I told her to publish it and then I thought – why don’t I do this for survivors? Well, here it is, just in time for Christmas/Hannukah/Winter Solstice or whatever holiday you might celebrate at this time of the year.

Thank you for shopping and again, leave a review if you don’t mind, so others might consider picking up a copy for themselves.

Survivor Stories – Human Trafficking

Virginia Giuffre

There are many survivors of the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell human trafficking scandal. While we only hear about the women, I have seen a photo online of him standing with a group of boys. I imagine that they are having a harder time coming forward, as male sexual abuse survivors often do. Virginia Giuffre appears to be the most outspoken, female survivor, with her book “Nobody’s Girl.” What is sad is two things, one that she felt so alone and depressed that she died by suicide. Secondly, that one of the other victim’s a Korean woman by the name of Rina Oh and she were in pursuit of justice in different ways and at odds with each other at the same time.

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Gaslight Scene which Captures Gaslighting Best

This particular scene works best in understanding what “gaslighting” is. It also shows the moves of a pathological liar in motion. When watching this, pay particular attention to when she says “the letter.” See how Gregory stops in motion, is thinking, then turns around and stumbles with his words ever so slightly before conjuring up the lie that she never had the letter in the first place. When Paula uses the terms “insane” she is letting us all know that this is what it feels like when someone is gaslighting you. Although she says “Are you trying to tell me I am insane.” This is an educated woman trying to make sense of her reality. This is the difference between a lie an gaslighting.

At the end, a discussion is had about why “he” can’t let her go out in public. This would have been the worst thing that could happen to a society woman in her time period. She would become speculation for gossip and rumors, which we see in this movie when the two maids are talking outside the house (this is not on this clip). In today’s day and age, if a celebrity couple is captured in a photo (alone or together), perhaps in a bad mood, bad hair day, poor choice of clothing, this is the modern way of “going out in public” and gossip and rumors run havoc in the tabloids.

Dial M for Murder – A Very Very Prepared Psychopath

Ray Milland plays Tony Wendice (prn. When-dess), in the 1954 Hitchcock film “Dial M For Murder.” He is a cold, calculating, psychopath, who has elegantly and cleverly set up Anthony Dawson’s character Charles Swann to kill his wife for her money. This is a familiar storyline from the movies Temptation, Double Indemnity, The Postman Rings Twice, to name a few.

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