The Leftovers - Collective Unconscious, Trauma and the Search for Meaning
HBO’s “The Leftovers” (2014-2017) takes us on a three-season sociological and psychological adventure following a metaphysical event. Adapted from Tom Perrotta ’s novel, written for television by Damon Lindelof & Perrotta , the series asks what remains of the human psyche, of society, and of the sacred after 2 % of the world’s population vanishes overnight. Rating - ★★★★★ Narrative & Psychological Texture From the outset the show is less concerned with ontological answers (“where did they go?”) than with psychic aftershocks. Lindelof’s writers’ room consulted grief studies and trauma theory, allowing the script to depict stalled mourning, survivor’s shame and complicated bereavement with rare accuracy. The laconic dialogue, punctuated by wordless stretches, trusts the audience to inhabit liminal emotional states rather than name them. Jungian Myth-Work: The Deer, the Double & the Wound Carl G. Jung reads the stag as a psychopomp: a horned mediator th...
