THE BIZ : Doc Hollywood

Rachel Ballon is a different kind of script doctor. Instead of curing screenplays of flawed dialogue, unrealistic characters and phony conflicts, she focuses on mending the people who write them. Her specialty is helping writers cope with life in Hollywood.

“When people come into my office, I tell them to put their scripts away,” says Ballon, a Westwood-based psychotherapist. “We talk about childhood rejections, sibling jealousy, mother complexes and father Angst, personal life experiences. These are the roadblocks the writer has to resolve in order to write and sell a screenplay.”

From A-list screenwriters to beginners, Ballon has nursed hundreds of troubled screenwriters and novelists through their internal struggles. “I had one man, a fairly successful screenwriter, who complained his characters were shallow and he’d run dry of emotions to give them. Our big breakthrough was when he sobbed, mourning a terrible relationship with his father. That cured his writer’s block.”

Ballon has personal experience dealing with Tinseltown tensions: She wrote several episodes of “The New Love American Style” and has had screenplays optioned by Warner Bros. and Paramount. She has also taught at USC, UCLA and the American Film Institute, and her book “Blueprint for Writing” (Lowell House) was published earlier this month.

“I believe we are all given life scripts; they begin when we are born,” she says. “We often choose to forget a lot of the emotional details. Everyone needs to get in touch with the real pain in order to find the passion.”