Word: psycho
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Visiting Russia in 1951, French Obstetrician Fernand Lamaze brought psycho-prophylaxis, a new form of childbirth preparation, back to France with him, began insisting that maternity patients get ready for birth with a routine of exercise. He taught his patients chest breathing to prepare them for the time when their abdominal muscles would help expel the baby from the uterus. He schooled his patients in effleurage, a simple massage of the lower abdomen that serves to lessen muscular tension during contractions. Most important, Lamaze taught women to relax while participating actively in labor...
...thick coat of mushy black polish before happening to notice that the customer is barefoot. When he wants to look well dressed, he pulls his socks down over his sneakers. When somebody shouts in his face, his eyebrows grow six inches in six seconds. When somebody calls him a psycho-ceramic, he figures they mean a crackpot...
...Luthers, Wagners and Napoleons on the couch," writes Psychologist Kiell, "but we know some of what they could have revealed there." In fact, thanks to sophisticated new techniques in "psychobiography" (analysis of handwriting, paintings, drawings, dreams), "psychology and biography have become almost inseparable." To demonstrate what a psycho-biographer can do when he sets his intuitions to work, Psychologist Kiell presents a series of post-mortem analyses of famous Americans as seen by an array of psychologists and psychiatrists. Most of them read like psychiatric small talk overheard at a literary cocktail party...
That's too easy, of course. Confidently, viewers settle back expecting old Master Spooksmith Alfred Hitchcock to splash some real surprises on the screen. Visions of Spellbound, Rear Window and Psycho dance in their heads. But all that develops is that red equals blood and Marnie equals the straightforward case history of a frigid kleptomaniac, a bookkeeper who burgles but won't bundle. Marnie's boss (Sean Connery) finds her out, then forces her to marry him so he can pursue his interest in "instinctual behavior." He learns that Mamie's hot little hands and cold...
Strait-Jacket. Joan Crawford cuts loose in a sanguinary shudder-show that suffers from a split personality. It was written by Robert Bloch (Psycho), but screams for the sure hand of Hitchcock; it aspires to the Grand Guignol of Baby Jane, but falls short of being droll. Yet despite foolish dialogue, blunt direction, and a fustian plot, there are moments of breath-stopping terror as the heads roll, at times almost literally...