Week 5

This week Devin, Michelle and I met with the psychic for an hour on Saturday 9/19/15. She was welcoming and very excited to talk with us about her experience in her work with life coaching, tarot cards, and massage therapy. She talked with us about her life and her subjective opinions on life and love. She talked a lot about her new dog, Hope, that she got three weeks ago, who was adorable. We pet Hope for an hour, and Lorri talked about how love can be about anything and how Hope shows her a new side of love everyday. She gave me a lot of ideas to think about and I know that her perspective will bring an interesting aspect to the film that is not all about romantic love. Devin and I also met on Friday 9/18/15 and worked on Assignment 3.

We have been emailing and calling all of our experts, but not many have wanted to respond or are responding slowly. The funeral home is interested but seems hesitant to talk with us, but we are calling them on Monday. The bartender is also interested but is being difficult in setting a date for the interview. The sex therapist just got back to us today and wanted the questions but didn't want to set a date for the interview yet but does seem excited.

Expert Bios and Questions

Love Experts - Bios and Questions:

Mother – Jennifer Freeman

Jennifer is a semi recently remarried mother of three. Her kids, Grace Dodd, age 8, Wright Dodd, age 6, and Emerson Freeman, age 1 ½. Age 38, Jennifer graduated from Mount Olive College and works with an activist group involved in drug representation. She currently lives in Wilmington, but is originally from Teachy, North Carolina.

Questions:

1. In our eyes you qualify as an expert in love being that you are a mother and wife, in as many or few words as you’d like, what is love to you?
2. If you do not mind sharing, what toll did divorce have on you and your kids?
3. How do you share the time with the kids between you and your ex-husband? What prompted this arrangement?
4. What do you look for in a relationship/father for your kids?
5. Can you tell me about your first love?
6. What’s the difference between the first love and the ones to come after?
7. Describe the feeling of being a parent - the transition from you being the center of your world to little humans acquiring that position; what’s running through your mind, etc.
8. Did you see changes in your marriage after having kids? What were they?
9. What would you have done differently in your first marriage? Why?
10. What has been the most helpful advice you’ve received about marriage?

Counselor - Douglas Owen

Douglas is the owner of Bridge Builders Counseling Center, a professional therapy and counseling center located in Wilmington, NC. Having received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Randolph Macon College, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Science in Pastoral Counseling, Douglas is highly qualified and passionate about helping people in his community. His center offers services dealing with a wide range of issues such as anger management and mental illness, to parenting and marriage counseling.

Questions:

1. What is the most common issue you’ve seen among couples using your services, and why do you think that is?
2. How would you describe the difference between romantic love and familial love? Is one stronger than the other, why?
3. What exactly does counseling do for couples and parents in need?
4. What experiences in your life prompted your interest in such work as couples and marriage counseling?
5. Are you married? (If I may ask) How is your marriage?
6. What do you believe to be the connection between spirituality and love?
7. To give a definition to it, what is love?
8. In the simplest sense, is love more about biology or chemistry? Explain.
9. Do you agree with the opposites attract theory or those more similar attract?
10. What is the most basic advice you would give to a couple having problems?

Bartender – Jim Radle

Jim is the owner and one of the bartenders of 22 North, a beach bar and restaurant located on Wrightsville Beach. Jim is in his thirties, and has been married for a few years, with several children. Jim is also a first hand witness of the minglings of college students during his bar’s nightlife.

Questions:

1. How would you describe the basic interaction between college kids at your bar?
2. Describe some of the best and worst couples you’ve seen?
3. How do you balance the young bar scene with being a father and husband?
4. What were you like in college?
5. When did you meet your wife? How has your relationship changed over the years?
6. Do you think it is possible to have a lasting relationship in college? How/Why?
7. What kind of relationship advice would you give your kids?
8. How much of an effect does alcohol have on the college dating scene?
9. What is the difference in behavior between a girl and a guy at a bar?
10. Do you think the social environment promotes or inhibits a young person’s relationship? Why?

Preacher – Anthony C. Grills

Anthony is a preacher, husband, and father, currently working for the Holston Conference for a small church in Tazewell, Virginia. Having worked in several different facilities, preaching to a variety of age groups, and handling situations from funerals to weddings, Anthony is well acquainted with how people deal and don’t deal with love.

Questions:

1.     If you were to make the Webster’s definition for love, what would it be?

2.     When you join a marriage, what is the most common issue you find?

3.     Tell me a story about a time you felt loved.

4.     Tell me about when you saw love for the first time.

5.     What do you think brings people together? What tears them apart?

6.     What does religion have to say about love?

7.     When people don’t feel loved, what do you find happens? How do they show it?

8.     Are there different kinds of love?

9.     Why do people need to feel loved?

10. What would you say to a person who didn’t feel loved?

Psychic – Lorri Gifford

Trained in tarot card readings, life coaching, and massage, Lorri has been honing her skills since 1986. She has obtained a variety of clients since she was a young adult, and is familiar with peoples’ desires out of life—one of those desires often being love. Living in the Wilmington area, she has been life coaching nationally and writing.

Questions:

1.     What do people usually need when they come to you for life coaching? Do couples ever come to you?

2.     Why do people come to have their cards read?

3.     What are the types of advice you give to them?

4.     Where do you think most issues in life stem and why?

5.     What do tarot cards say about love?

6.     You have an interesting combination of talents. When you are giving massages, are there certain areas of the body that hold tension from feeling lonely? Where do we carry that loneliness?

7.     Tell me about a time you felt most loved.

8.     Tell me about when you saw love for the first time.

9.     When people don’t feel loved, what do you think happens? How do they show it?

10. If someone you were life coaching didn’t feel loved, what would you coach them to do? What are the steps they should take?

Sex Therapist – Dr. Ralph W Fox II

Dr. Fox has been in therapy for over thirty years helping couples realize and resolve their problems. He directly addresses sexual issues in relationships, whatever they may be, always reminding his patients that confidentiality is key in his work. Dealing with many more addictions, Dr. Fox will have a wide range of past clients who have struggled with love in their lifetime.

Questions:

1.     What is the most common reason couples come to you? Why do you think that is such a problem for couples?

2.     Where do you think struggles with sex or sexuality stems?

3.     What does sex say about a relationship and the individual?

4.     Tell me a story about a time you felt most loved.

5.     Tell me about when you saw love for the first time.

6.     What does sex do for love? What does love do for sex?

7.     The “hook up culture” is becoming more and more of a trend in the young adult world. As a sex therapist, do you see this trend as harmful if safe sex is practiced?

8.      When people don’t feel loved, what do you think happens? How do they show it?

9.     Are there different kinds of sexual advice you give to couples that seem to increase romantic feelings in the relationship?

10. If a person didn’t feel loved during sex, how would you advise them?