Evelyn Cassella

Evelyn Abigail Cassella is English and a Dream Therapist on her way towards her PhD in Psychology from George Washington University, focussed on Dream Sharing Addiction and accompanying Dissociative Dissorders. She is friendly, truly caring and trustworthy, putting the needs of her patients before anything else. She is known for taking on difficult cases, particularly those who are unconscious, and has even reasoned a patient or two out of Limbo. Evie feels that nobody is beyond her reach and her optimism in her practice (and life generally) is largely unparalleled. She has a keen mind and a knack for logic, reason and reading people and is very attached to having things orderly and controlled (a natural inclination heightened by her forays into the potential chaos of the dream-world).

Evelyn Cassella is portrayed by actress Emily Blunt.

Personality
Ms. Cassella is the collision of two distinct personality types; control extraordinaire (she resents the term ‘freak’) and dynamic expressive. Had her work with shared dreamers not continued to draw out of her an inherent deep respect for control and order, she may have branched out into artistry, her love for the aesthetic beauty of life and small, vivid moments outplayed in a skill of some sort. As it is, this passion plays itself out in very many other ways, her enjoyment of everything and sheer desire to live in the moment very apparent to all who meet her. Of course, this is tempered by her need to be in command of every situation and what might be a flair for the imperfections of life has grown into perfectionism about most things in Evelyn Cassella.

So, while her individuality is apparent in her attire and love of life, it is her love for order that truly makes her tick and gives her the edge in a career based on very slippery concepts of reality. There is nothing more beautiful to Ms. Cassella than a well-organized space; an alphabetized bookcase, a properly set chessboard and this also aids in giving her patients a feeling of being grounded around the therapist and has quite a calming effect in the panic-ridden world of the ever-shifting. Evie is a person who enjoys empirical and quantifiable structures. Thus, she will always strive for perfection in everything. While an imperfect world frustrates most perfectionists, this has manifested itself rather differently in Ms. Cassella, her hope for rehabilitation more idealistic than ever. Where other perfectionists see a world full of flaws and are depressed by it, Cassella sees a world ready to be righted, just as her father was able to do with many of the difficult patients that crossed his path and she finds nothing more invigorating. (This is amply displayed by her warm and cheerful demeanour.)

Thus, Ms. Cassella is a Class A ‘fixer’. If something is broken, she will dedicate her heart and soul to correcting the error and bringing things back to order. Thus, her compassion for the ‘untouchable’, ‘unfixable’ cases that flood the world of ‘Shared Dreaming Psychology’ is perhaps unparalleled. Cassella is dedicated to them all. She is a tenacious therapist and one who is so idealistic in her outlook, that she will take quite extraordinary risks in order to get through to those who most need her. While this has paid off in the short-term, with a great deal of success in her practice, it is difficult to tell how long it will be before Ms. Cassella finds herself in a position she cannot command. Furthermore, her optimistic outlook has sometimes been interpreted as ‘flippancy’ by her superiors and the families of those she is working with and can cause some abrasiveness. None of which matters much to Evie; never allowing her attention to be distracted from those in her care and never allowing others to keep her down for long.

Ultimately, Ms. Cassella is a very loving and approachable sort, whose primary concern is the well-being of her patients and the successful advancement of their care. She is dedicated to any who seek her out and trustworthy to the end, though her methods and growing attachment to control may yet be somewhat of an unraveling force for her.

With Kellan Thiery
Kellan is one of Evelyn's patients and one that she has swiftly developed a soft spot for since the beginning of his treatment in July 2011. He is troubled mostly by his relationship with his mom, who is on a mission to 'cure' his homosexuality, which Evelyn has flatly refused to do. She still manages to keep onside with his mother though, in order that she not simply move Kellan to another therapist who Evie feels might do him harm.

With Vivian Prosper
Many great things begin in unusual circumstance and Evie's meeting with Vivian was just such an occasion. The pair met when Vi's dog, Penguin, rather adorably knocked Evie down while out jogging. All was forgiven in seconds and, Evie being a rather aggressive friend-maker, took the opportunity to make a new one. They have much in common and Evie imagines it's good to finally know someone in DC that isn't intimately involved in her work.

With Tallulah Ryan
TJ, as she commanded she be called, is a law student at GWU and a patient referred to Evelyn by a Dr Paul Galiano, a friend at GWU. She is a tough one, her hard outward exterior covered brilliantly by a mask of self-assurance that Evie is slowly beginning to learn of and wants desperately to unravel to discover the TJ that's underneath. Whether this path is a wise move is a matter of professional opinion.

With Deacon Fitzpatrick
There is nothing more awkward than to run into someone who knows all the details of the worst part of your life. Evelyn hopes that it's surmountable as she seeks to build a bit more of a friendship with Deacon Fitzpatrick, a former recreational dreamer and patient who has built a new life with he, his daughter and a gorgeous little flower shop in Crystal City.

With Adrian Loveday
Having met at the APA Convention in Washington DC under rather odd circumstance, Evelyn is not quite sure what to make of Mr Loveday, though she had little qualms about skipping the most fascinating presentation of the convention to have lunch with him. Psychologically, it makes no sense.

History
Evelyn Abigail Cassella was born in Roehampton, London to esteemed QC Genevieve Cassella (nee King) and her husband, Dr. Michael Cassella, a Forensic Psychologist who specialized in Dissociative Disorders and Advanced Psychoses. As an only child she was doted on, somewhat, though her parents’ busy schedules often got the better of the family and meant that Evie became quite self-reliant from a young age. A confident and curious young girl, she spent quite a bit of times outdoors and developed a deep love for the surrounds of the Cassella family home, taking quite keenly to horse-riding, and soon becoming acquainted with quite a number of the family’s neighbours. This trend was to continue at school, Evie making fast friends with quite a few classmates, her compassion and warmth endearing her to many students and staff.

She also showed a knack for logic and reason, quickly learning chess from her mother, who was an avid player, and becoming quite proficient in it as a teenager, whilst benefitting from the academic atmosphere that prevailed at home. Her other interests at school quickly showed themselves in artwork, debating and peer counseling in her later years and she excelled in her studies. Her key passion, however, was psychology, her father having an important influence at a young age. He, unable to identify with dolls or hairstyles, shared instead his profession with his daughter (keeping his patients’ strictest confidence, of course) and began teaching her the art of reading human expression, as well as some of the counseling techniques when she began experience the all-too-common issues in teenage relationships. Thus, Evie became fascinated by the human psyche and expressed her wish to follow in her father’s footsteps, especially once she had learned of the very nature of his practice.

Her knack for playing mediator amongst conflicts in her friendship circle had developed in Evie an affection for ‘fixing’ situations, which was compounded by her father’s own attention to previously rejected cases. His own optimism and determination came out quite strongly in his work and rubbed off profoundly on his daughter. It visited itself quite keenly on her during her university years at King’s College in London and she soon developed a reputation as an advisor amongst her peers. She did extremely well in her studies, majoring in human behaviour, with a minor in the psychology of dream states. The latter had come from a keen fascination with the subconscious and its impact on the subject’s reality. It was with this fascination that she developed an interest in dream-sharing and it’s inherent affect on the human psyche. Her post-graduate study showed more attention to this, Evelyn earning her Masters in Psychology through research into the impact of shared-dreaming on the subconscious. At 23, her research was quickly picked up by Yale University and she left England to pursue a PhD in Psychology.

Her research became particularly relevant after Dominic Cobb and his team achieved the first instance of ‘Inception’, and dream-sharing became more and more prevalent. As the possible negative effects of this phenomenon became more apparent, the addictions to the partial reality and the schisms developed in the subconscious psyche rendering some increasing social degeneration, Evelyn stepped out of the purely academic and went into practice in the States, using her experience in counseling to combat the fractures that were beginning to show. Her first patient, a William McNamara, had suffered a direct break from reality as a result of his dream-sharing experiences, unable to psychologically break himself from the dreamworld. Thus, Evelyn deferred to her father’s expertise and began to collaborate on the running trends through the treatment of psychosis and applying it to those suffering from dream-sharing-related dissociation.

Cassella soon began to show some remarkable results, able to actively reason her patients back into understanding the reality around them, and seeing major recovery. Encouraged by this, she began delving further into the understanding of ‘Limbo’ and has been increasingly focused on this aspect in her practice to this day. She has had limited success in reasoning patients out of ‘Limbo’, though she has had a few rehabilitations that continue on that journey presently, and she continues in that endeavour, having moved her practice to Washington D.C., and is still working on completing the research necessary for her PhD. She now resides in Georgetown and will take on any dream-sharing-related case, from simple addiction to more serious dissociative disorders. Her positive attitude and ‘fixer’ mentality mean that she will dedicate herself wholly to anyone who seeks her help.

Skills
Psychology – Cassella is an extremely talented therapist, daring to reach for the cases that older, wiser psychologists step back from. No one is unreachable to her mind and she has even had some success with reasoning dreamers out of Limbo.

Logic and Reasoning Ability – You don’t want to be on the other side of this chess board.

Reading People – A part of being a decent psychologist is understanding behaviour patterns and body language and Cassella has developed a keen eye for it.