I've recently been watching a lot of In Treatment, the HBO series about a psychotherapist, Dr Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne), some of his patients, and his own supervision/therapy.
As a counsellor who has been trained in a completely different way, I find it fascinating as a drama and interesting on a professional level. There are many occasions where I'll hear a question and think 'that's not how I'd ask that' or 'I wouldn't phrase it that way'.
There are many other occasions when I wonder if psychotherapy is really as it is portrayed in the show (I've had person-centred counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy, and the relationships I've had with those counsellors have been nothing like the ones in the series), but it does seem to work for some of his patients.
The episodes are about 25 minutes long, so not the full length of a a 'therapeutic hour', but you do get some very intense exchanges between Paul and his patients and some very emotional scenes. Gabriel Byrne is brilliant as the skilled but vulnerable psychotherapist and the patients in the first season include a nurse (Melissa George), a troubled teenage gymnast (Mia Wasikowska), and a couple dealing with an unhappy child, an impending pregnancy, and a fragile relationship (Josh Charles and Embeth Davidz).
I'm about halfway through the second season and still really enjoying it and the new patients such as a lawyer (Hope Davis) who saw Paul some years ago and now wants to resume therapy, April (Alison Pill), a student who hasn't told any of her family or friends that she has stage 3 cancer, a stressed CEO, Walter (John Mahoney), whose wife thinks he needs some psychological help, and a young boy, Oliver (Aaron Shaw), whose parents have separated before divorcing.
It's a brilliant show which I highly recommend.
|