On Fictional Therapists

 

Anyone who has sat with me and watched a television show or movie featuring a therapy session can tell you that I get pretty critical when a therapist breaches an important ethic.  Tom and Lynette’s couples therapist in Desperate Housewives invited them to see a play she was in.  Daniel in Ugly Betty slept with his therapist.  Jack Nicholson’s character in Anger Management breaches more boundaries than I can even begin to count.  And the list goes on and on.  Therapists in the media have sexual relationships with their clients, breach confidentiality, and engage in dual role relationships (any time a therapist has a non-therapy relationship with a client).  

So when I heard people talking about a new series starring Lisa Kudrow called “Web Therapy,” I thought to myself, “I’m probably not going to watch that.”  I like to minimize the amount of time I spend feeling angry, so much as other people might avoid a political conversation with someone who has rigid and staunchly different views, I avoid things that make a farce out of my career. 

It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humor about what I do for a living; rather, it’s that I think therapy has a pretty egregious PR problem, and it bothers me when things perpetuate that.  Talking to laypeople about therapy, it’s astounding how many people think therapy is “only for crazy people,” or that all therapists are complete nut jobs, or that therapists are “professional advice givers,” or that it would be appropriate to pursue a romantic relationship with their own therapist.  Some people think you can pop out of high school and hang out a shingle, while others assume you have to have a doctorate.  Misconceptions about who therapists are and what we do run rampant.

But a colleague recommended this show – another therapist, so I gave it a try.  In the first episode, Lisa Kudrow’s character meets with a therapy client.  It becomes immediately apparent that this client is someone she used to work with in her former career.  She tells the client/ former colleague that her therapy sessions are only 3 minutes long.  As they talk, it comes to light that she and this colleague had had a previous office flirtation, and her assumption is that he is coming to therapy to talk with her about how depressing it was when she discontinued their affair.  He insists that this is not why he is there, and goes on to tell her that he’s actually there to talk about something that is happening with his girlfriend, at which point she gets visibly upset that he has a new partner, tells him they are out of time and will “pick up here next week,” and mutes his video chat window.

I could go on and on with all the things that are wrong with this.  People have disputed whether the 50 minute therapy hour (or 45 minute hour according to new insurance regulations) is appropriate or vital, but Kudrow’s 3 minute session reminds me of this Bob Newhart bit.  And I could write for pages about why dual role relationships are unethical, though I think the episode actually does a pretty good job  demonstrating what can happen when a relationship between a therapist and their client takes on a second role in addition to therapy.  But my intention in writing this is not to critically review this particular show.

My intention is to encourage you, dear blog reader, to be a critical media consumer.  If I felt that this blog were likely to fall into the hands of producers of mass media, I would focus on encouraging them to research the careers of the characters they write so they don’t misinform their viewers.  But since you’re my audience, I want to instead urge you to question everything you watch and read, and to treat your brain as a filter rather than a sponge.  

It’s not just therapists either.  I’ve talked to lawyers who are annoyed that everyone thinks they’re Perry Mason, and doctors who cringe whenever someone compares their life to ER or Grey’s Anatomy.  Teachers strive to fulfill curriculum and state testing requirements and try to find a way in all the bureaucracy to still inspire a love of learning in their students, and then they’re faced with angry parents who want to know why they can’t be more like Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.  The truth of the matter is that unless you have experienced a profession or have a close relationship with someone who has, you probably have a lot of misconceptions, and I'm sure I do too.  

I guess all I’m saying is if you think Web Therapy is hilarious, by all means, watch it.  The fact that it’s a comedy actually makes it less insidious than a therapist-centric drama, because it’s clearly intended to be over the top and not true to life.  But the next time someone you meet says they’re a therapist, please don’t assume that what they do (even if they practice online therapy) is anything like what you’ve seen on this or any other show.