Are YOU Flirting with a Fantasy? Idealisation, Projection and the Psychodynamics of Love
- Doris Cozma
- May 22
- 4 min read
Netflix’s YOU isn’t your typical love story... It’s a chilling portrait of obsession, control and violence. Joe Goldberg, the series’ lead, is a serial killer who cloaks his dangerous behaviour in the language of love. His actions are abusive, manipulative, and absolutely inexcusable.
And yet, for all its extremes, YOU holds up a dark mirror to some very real emotional dynamics: the way we can confuse intensity for intimacy, idealisation for love, and projection for connection. As a Divorce & Separation Coach, I often work with clients who are trying to make sense of painful relationship patterns, and (surprisingly) a fictional character like Joe can help us better understand the unconscious forces that drive them.
The Fantasy Trap
Joe doesn't love; he idealises. Each woman he meets becomes a fantasy figure, someone he believes will finally meet all his unmet emotional needs. He doesn’t see them for who they truly are; he sees who he wants them to be: the perfect partner, the ever-loving mother who won’t abandon him, the one who will finally make him feel whole.
“In the early stages of love, each partner may be idealized, as if they can finally meet all unmet needs from the past. But disappointment is inevitable when the real person emerges.” (Balfour and Morgan, 2018)
This disappointment goes both ways. As the illusion fades, Joe’s partners often realise that he is not the person they had imagined. When they assert their boundaries, express emotional complexity, or (in Love Quinn’s case) reflect back the darker aspects of his behaviour, Joe does not respond with sadness or self-awareness. Instead, he turns to control, rage, and ultimately, violence.
Joe’s story is an extreme version of something many people experience more subtly. It reflects that painful moment when we realise we were not in love with the real person in front of us; we were in love with who we hoped they could be.
Brontë, Joe’s new love interest in YOU Season 5, captures this perfectly when she says:
“The fantasy of a man like you is how we cope with the reality of a man like you.”
It is a devastating line; one that speaks to how fantasy can protect us from truths we are not yet ready to face.
Repeating the Past in the Present
Psychodynamic theory suggests that our intimate relationships are often the stage on which our earliest wounds are replayed. Joe's compulsion to protect, possess, and ultimately punish his partners isn’t just about them; it is also about trying to resolve the trauma of his own childhood: neglect, abandonment, violence, and a desperate longing for love. Balfour and Morgan (2018) put it this way:
“The couple relationship offers an opportunity to rework early developmental experiences, but it also risks becoming a site where those difficulties are reenacted.”
Joe re-enacts his past again and again, each time hoping for a different outcome. But without insight or accountability, he remains trapped in the same destructive loop. (Spoiler alert: he can’t change, and doesn’t.)
And here’s the thing: his partners aren’t simply helpless victims of his fantasy. In the early stages, they are often drawn to his emotional intensity. That kind of devotion can feel intoxicating to someone who has experienced inconsistent care or relational trauma. For someone who has been overlooked or undervalued, being chosen, watched, and prioritised can feel like love.
But it isn’t love. It is enmeshment, control, and in some cases, coercion. And by the time the red flags become clear, many people are already deeply entangled.
Why This Matters in Real Life
Most relationships don’t unfold like YOU, but many do involve fantasy, projection, and a cycle of idealisation followed by disappointment. When those dynamics go unchecked, they can lead to painful breakups, high-conflict separations, and long-lasting emotional damage.
In my work as a Divorce Coach, I often see people wrestling with confusion, shame or self-blame after a difficult relationship ends:
“Why did I stay?”
“How did I not see it?”
“Why do I keep ending up with the same kind of person?”
The answer often lies beneath the surface: in unconscious expectations shaped by early experiences, in the hope that love will finally heal past wounds, and in the belief that this time, things will be different.
Understanding these patterns is the first step in breaking them. As Balfour and Morgan (2018) write:
“Therapy aims to help couples develop a capacity for reflective functioning: the ability to think about one’s own and the other’s mind, rather than becoming trapped in cycles of accusation and defensiveness.”
That is the goal in coaching too. When we take time to pause, reflect, and understand what really happened, both emotionally and psychologically, it becomes easier to separate what belongs to us, what does not, and what we want to do differently next time.
Final Thoughts
YOU is fiction (and extreme fiction at that). But the emotional themes it explores are painfully familiar. We all want to be loved, to be seen, to be chosen. But love that is based on fantasy cannot survive real life. When we idealise our partners, we set them up to fail. When we project our wounds onto them, we lose sight of both who they are and who we are.
Whether you are leaving a relationship, recovering from one, or trying to avoid repeating old patterns, there is real power in understanding the stories you carry into love. Because once you see them, you can choose to rewrite them.
References
Balfour, A. and Morgan, M. (2018) ‘Being a Couple’, in A. Balfour, M. Clulow and C. J. Thompson (eds.) Engaging Couples: New Directions in Therapeutic Work with Families. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 27–36.
Netflix (2018–2025) YOU [TV series]. Developed by Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble. Netflix.
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