On The Couch: Let’s Dig Into Eric Brady’s Days of our Lives Psyche

On Days of our Lives, everyone knows that Eric Brady has a mom who is a shrink. That practically guarantees him being a hot mess, psychologically speaking. But we can’t blame Marlena for all of Eric’s issues. Especially when she was dead for a good part of his childhood. And then shipped him off to live with her parents in Colorado for literally years. Neither of which exactly helped him grow up all healthy. (You’d think someone in the mental health field would know better.)

Eric Brady: Where You Come From

But Eric’s (Greg Vaughan) parents are only a small piece of the puzzle. Eric was primarily raised by the hero that is John Black (Drake Hogysten). Then his biological parents returned from the dead. The upstanding Roman Brady (Josh Taylor), and the saintly Marlena (Deidre Hall). Sure, those were Eric’s role models.

DAYS: Sister Dearest

But a much bigger influence on Eric was his sister, Sami (Alison Sweeney). She claimed the evil twin mantle pretty early on in life. Which left Eric stuck in the good twin role. He tried. He really did. But the women in his life made it pretty tough. Nicole Walker (Arianne Zucker) can make even the saintliest of personas want to break some commandments. So Eric fought back the only way he could think of – he joined the priesthood. Alas, it didn’t take.

Days of our Lives Mirror Image

You know how they say you recreate your relationship with your parents in your romantic relationships? But poor Eric had a merry-go-round of parents. The most consistent relationship in his life was not his mom or his dad(s), but his sister, Sami. She was bad, he was good. So that’s the relationship Eric is spending his adult life trying to reproduce – without realizing that’s what he’s doing.

It’s not just Nicole. It was just Sloan (Jessica Serfaty), too. Eric keeps finding bad women who he can play good boy to. Then getting furious when they turn out to be exactly what he was looking for. Until Eric recognizes this pattern of his, he’s going to keep getting his heart broken. Needlessly.

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