Sunday, November 21, 2010

"In Treatment", Part Two

Whew! I'm very happy to say that I am much relieved after watching episode two of season two. Paul has been transformed! In any case, his professional performance has taken a dramatic and wonderful turn for the better. Maybe I shouldn't have worried? Maybe I should have understood that the requirements of TV drama were at work, and that in some way, all would return to a happy homeostasis. Of course, and no doubt, these very same requirements will give us other moments of tension regarding Paul, in both his personal and his professional life. (Those of you already into season three, please indulge my time warp experience of what is now well in the past for you. Perhaps all is well now, in a future that I cannot see. But probably not. Not if the series is to continue, eh?)

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Monday, November 15, 2010

"In Treatment" on HBO

It seems that so many people, including me, enjoy this cable tv show, now in its third season. I have to wait a year after the season ends to get it on netflix, since cable isn't available where I live, so I'm just now starting to watch season two. I was talking with my wife about the first episode while and after we were watching it recently, and there is a point that I feel almost compelled to make.

My concern is that most people who are watching this series - that is to say, the lay audience - might not be aware, unless they may have experienced some good therapy themselves as clients, that this series is presenting a portrait of a therapist in crisis, both personally and professionally, and that what the viewing audience is witnessing is a practitioner who is significantly compromised in his abilities to provide good therapy. In other words, we are seeing, often, the delivery of "bad" therapy.

I confirmed this just yesterday with a good friend who also enjoys the series. He acknowledged that he was not aware of this, and that it hadn't occurred to him that "Paul" was not doing a good professional job of it. My friend's partner however, who has experienced long term therapy of her own, did have more of a sense of some of Paul's shortcomings.

I'm concerned about this because people may well view this brilliantly produced and acted series thinking that what they are seeing is what good therapy is like, when it is not, or that they may indeed be turned away from therapy because they might sense or feel that something is "off" in Paul's work, but think that this is what therapy consists of. Yikes! Of course, there is already enough stigma, still - imagine that here we are in the 21st century, and there is still an enormous bias against "mental health" treatment; it's very nearly incomprehensible, but there it is nonetheless - when it comes to therapy. We don't need any more.

The hopeful bit is that at the end of episode one of season two, Paul recognizes that he needs to be back in therapy himself, and plans to begin again with his long time professor, mentor, friend and, now, therapist, Gina (This relationship, by the way, raises other important questions which I won't go into here and now). Good for him. We all hope, of course, that he will benefit personally, and improve professionally as a result. His patients deserve, and require, no less.

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