PBS gets in touch with emotions and a Vietnam Vet with PTSD

Over the course of six hours, PBS gets in touch with emotions

By Joel Brown
Globe Correspondent

No doubt there are viewers for whom a six-hour PBS miniseries about our emotions sounds like an excruciating torment itself.

THIS EMOTIONAL LIFE

On: Channel 2
Time: Monday through Wednesday at 9 p.m.
“This Emotional Life,’’ debuting tonight on WGBH (Channel 2), proves that fear to be irrational. But whether it’s worth the time in therapy to overcome, they’ll have to decide for themselves.

The three-night show is promoted as an examination of our relationship to happiness, but only the third night really focuses on that. The first two examine roadblocks to happiness such as loneliness, marital discontent, post-traumatic stress, clinical depression, and phobias, as well as new attempts to overcome them.

The title seems an obvious reference to public radio’s storytelling “This American Life.’’ “This Emotional Life’’ revolves around narratives of real people wrestling with those emotional roadblocks: a family worn down by their adopted son’s attachment disorder; a Massachusetts state senator who found the greatest release from his depression by revealing it; a Vietnam veteran who struggled with PTSD for 30 years.
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PBS gets in touch with emotions