— Overview
The film, in that account, is about a child who cannot take in a death, and about whether love can do what a tightly steered therapy cannot.
— Contents and key concepts
A death in Mexico, and a house of cards
Michael Lessac’s House of Cards, completed in 1991 and shown widely in 1993, including at Sundance, is the film a Korean child-counseling essay chooses for a comparison of methods. Ruth Matthews, played by Kathleen Turner, comes home with her daughter Sally, played by Asha Menina, after Sally’s father has died falling from a pyramid in Mexico.
Sally cannot admit the death, and cannot make her inner state legible to other people. She builds elaborate structures from cards. Dr. Jake Beerlander, played by Tommy Lee Jones, enters as the professional who will treat her.
A steered method, and a limit the essay is willing to name
The essay opens with a definition it attributes to the child-counseling writer Costin: work that tries to keep the frame of a child’s family, and to preserve and strengthen family life, rather than treating the child as a small adult. Against that background it reads Beerlander’s approach as directive: the counselor analyzes, diagnoses, and leads.
Such a method, the same essay says, can slight a client’s own capacity, and may be a poor fit for a disturbance that is mainly emotional. The writer still grants that Beerlander’s plan can look, medically, careful and even necessary. Sally has been shaken by a sudden loss; gathering a full picture of her life, and breaking a hard goal into smaller ones, are techniques the essay is willing to weigh.
Ruth’s trust, and a return that is not a lecture
What the essay sets on the other side is non-directive work, sometimes called client-centered: a trust that the person already wants, and can, find a way through, if the obstacles are loosened. That, for the writer, is what Ruth does. She does not stand over Sally as an authority. She stays with the child’s doubt and grief until Sally can come back toward the everyday girl she had been.
The point is not to turn a 1993 film into a manual, or to decide a diagnosis from the stalls. It is to watch two kinds of care meet a child who has lost a father, and to notice which one, in this Korean account, actually reaches her. A longer Korean version sits on CampusDown.
Sources
- A student account of Michael Lessac’s 1993 film House of Cards, comparing Dr. Jake Beerlander’s directive method with Ruth Matthews’s care for her daughter Sally.
Last updated 15 November 2026
Frequently asked questions
Who made House of Cards, and what has just happened to the family?
Michael Lessac directed the film, completed in 1991 and released in 1993, with Kathleen Turner as Ruth Matthews, Asha Menina as her daughter Sally, and Tommy Lee Jones as Dr. Jacob “Jake” Beerlander. The father has died falling from a pyramid in Mexico.
How does a Korean essay describe Sally?
Sally cannot accept or take in the fact that her father is dead, and cannot persuade anyone of what she feels. She builds structures from cards. The essay treats her withdrawal as something acquired after shock, not as a condition she was born with, and does not ask the film to serve as a clinical textbook.
What contrast does the essay draw between Beerlander and Ruth?
Beerlander’s way is read as directive counseling: the practitioner diagnoses and steers. Ruth’s way is read as closer to a non-directive, client-centered stance, trusting the child’s own capacity and staying with her. In the essay’s telling, it is the mother’s care, more than the doctor’s rational plan, that brings Sally back toward ordinary life.
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