Sometimes Ms. Fonda is her own armchair psychologist; sometimes she is an idealist with an agenda; sometimes she is a woman embarrassed by girlish self-effacement around men.

But their divorced-couple banter is enough to entertain any armchair psychologist.

"The idea was to get the manager out of the position of trying to be an armchair psychologist when he noticed an employee was having a performance problem," Mr. Phin said.

A mystical conversation about God implies that the president prefers his heavenly father, offering some fertile territory for armchair psychologists.

Wednesday was an ominous day, with Claire Rayner, armchair psychologist, joining Russell Grant, armchair astrologer, on the couch.

Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly, also highlighted those particular lyrics, speculating that "armchair psychologists will have a field day with the words".

When visiting the Neville family of Hampstead Heath, the three armchair psychologists immediately deem the mother too "bossy."

But it is left to the armchair psychologist to ponder the potent mixture of shame and self-contempt that led Berthold Lubetkin to inflict so much pain on the people he supposedly loved.

The prevalent theory among the armchair psychologists in the audience was that Mr. Yudenich might have felt unprepared for the pressure of the later rounds.