- 09
- Mar
I started out optimistic, but my hopes were dashed the longer I watched the HBO series “In Treatment.” It turns out that Paul, the psychologist, never read his APA Code of Ethics.
Paul fails to report an incidence of child abuse–a 30+ year old coach sleeps with his patient, a 16 year old girl. He lets a patient give him an expensive gift. He is sloppy about collecting his fees. He allows couples to scream and punch at each other in his office. And saving the worst for last, he hugs a patient who has been trying to seduce him for a year.
How sad. Paul had the potential to give viewers who have not been in therapy a real insider’s view of the process. But no. Instead the show sank to cliches–the therapist that falls in love with patients and fails to set boundaries.
Have you watched? What do you think?
March 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
AND — in a recent episode he confessed his feelings to the seductive patient and thinks he’s in love with her. Doesn’t it occur to him that she knows NOTHING about who he is and therefore is “in love” with a fantasy of who he might be? Even aside from the ethics question (and I’m not making light of that), it’s a doomed relationship because she’s used to all the focus being on her and she doesn’t know a darned thing about him. She has no idea what he’d be like as a partner.
And that’s another thing that doesn’t ring true. I know we teach what we need to learn, but is it possible that a therapist would be so out of touch with his own feelings, the needs/desires/lives of his wife and daughter, and would lash out at his wife at every opportunity? Geeez.
I hope we get to see more of his daughter’s life. The pilot client said that she’s sleeping with druggies, and it didn’t seem to get through to Dad at all — he was too busy obsessing about his wife’s affair and the client’s disrespect.
Joan Price
author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty (http://www.joanprice.com/BetterThanExpected.htm)
Join us — we’re talking about ageless sexuality at http://www.betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com