Shrinks on TV

I've had 12 shrinks in my life. The last one cost 12,000 dollars and recommended I stay with a guy who only liked butt sex. There was also a blind one who wouldn't let me play with her seeing-eye dog. And an obese hippie who wore ten bead necklaces at a time. And a guy who could never remember how to pronounce my name. And the woman who just kept prescribing pills (yum, I liked her.) I've had 12 shrinks in my life. The last one cost 12,000 dollars and recommended I stay with a guy who only liked butt sex. There was also a blind one who wouldn't let me play with her seeing-eye dog. And an obese hippie who wore ten bead necklaces at a time. And a guy who could never remember how to pronounce my name. And the woman who just kept prescribing pills (yum, I liked her.)

So I'm obviously, crazy. But I'm also by now, a coinesseur of mental healthship. I can tell the difference between the cognitive, behaviorist, freudian, lacanian, gesthaltan and lacanian approach, (My own personal favorite is a healthy blend of cognitive, behavioral, and Dr. Laura -- minus the homophobia). I had a Freudian once. He didn't say more than two words to me the whole time, and cost more than what I earned that whole year. (thanks MOM)

I might even argue that I started wanting to see a shrink because I thought they would all be wise and gentle, like Sydney Freeman on M*A*S*H. I think if I had Sydney as my guy, I'd be totally sane and functional by now. He was nice and wise and calm and really more like a rabbi than a doctor. That's what got me hooked on TV shrinks.

There's also Frasier, but I just never dug him. And that dude from the Bill Engvall show.

And there was Dr. Katz -- he was great, but such a nebbish you kind of got the idea he couldn't handle a real patient.

I also love Dr. Goode on Head Case, 'cause she's such an awesome, self-absorbed psycho and she's exactly the shrink that Hollywood deserves (did you see the ep where she has an actress shadowing her in her sessions with Craig Bierko?), but I could never afford the $450 per session she charges -- I mean I can't even afford Starz. But I watch the clips on their website...The best one is when she's explaining to Jerry Seinfeld why his fetish for medieval headgear in bed might not be healthy.

Dr. Goode: It makes me uncomfortable
Jerry Seinfeld: Well it makes me erect.

And the OG, Bob Newhart, who would probably be awesome to have as a therapist, and who only charged 25 dollars an hour. !

And of course you've always got Deanna Troi, from Star Trek's sensitive era. She was good because she also had ESP, so she could sense your situation instead of making you talk about it, and she had a soothing voice and you absolutely knew that she would never use the word "Transference" or "counter-transference.

But really, these guys are just build ups to the HBO shrinks, who are the real players, the major league of on-air angst-reduction.

We'll work our way up to Dr. Melfi, the big Kahuna, but first there's ol' Blue Eyes from In Treatment. This dude is bad news. Let's start with the fact that he came close to sleeping with a patient last year. Who was half his age. Whose whole aura was screaming "I WAS RAPED BY AN OLDER AUTHORITY FIGURE I TRUSTED" from Session 1. And then we could talk about the fact that the same thing happened in season 2! Or the fact that once his two patients started sleeping together, it never occured to him to recommend that either one or both see another therapist? Diagnosis: Boundary Issues

Kay Foster, from Tell Me You Love Me. Oh this show is so gross and squeamish and makes me never want to have sex again. She uses words like 'caress' and 'intimacy' and 'lovemaking' and 'sharing'... which are all so limpifying that you need to pound viagra after the show just to get up to pour another beer. I mean, even if you're a girl! But I have to admit, I have a married friend who watches it with her husband and says that after seven years together they have totally become one of the couples on the show, so watching it actually helped the get back on track. So, hey, someone's getting laid.

Finally, Dr. Melfi. It seems to me to be pretty clear. If you start lusting after your patient, you should stop seeing him, period. If your patient is a MURDEROUS PSYCHOPATH WHO COULD LAND YOU IN CEMENT STILETTOS stop seeing him. I'd even go so far as to say, if your patient is in North Jersey and pays you in cash, stop seeing him. But not Jennifer Melfi, no... she's got a turned on eye for the tough guy, and she's never letting go. It was there right from the start: Remember this little exchange:

Dr. Melfi: Do you have any qualms about how you actually make a living?
Tony Soprano: Yeah. I find I have to be the sad clown: laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.

Uh yeah, sad clown. In a Stephen King movie, maybe. Diagnosis: Heal thyself and go pick up a muscleshirt dude at the Paramus Gold's Gym.

The reason why so TV shrinks suck is that good shrinks are boring, They because they give a lot of the same common sense advice, they never tell patients things they're not yet ready to hear, and they spend a lot of time listening to patients retell the same stories over and over again. Real therapy it doesn't promise cliffhangers and progressive revelation every seven days with no commercial interruption.

But there is one exception, and he was only on one episode of the Soprano's. Remember when Carmella went to New York in search of her own therapy? She hooked up with Dr. Krakower.

Here are some highlights from their first and last session:

Carmela Soprano: He's a good man. He's a good father.
Dr. Krakower: You tell me he's a depressed criminal, prone to anger, serially unfaithful. Is that your definition of a good man?... You must trust your initial impulse and consider leaving him. You'll never be able to feel good about yourself. You'll never be able to quell the feelings of guilt and shame that you talked about, so long as you're his accomplice.
Carmela Soprano: You're wrong about the accomplice part, though.
Dr. Krakower: You sure?
Carmela Soprano: All I did was make sure he's got clean clothes in his closet and dinner on his table.
Dr. Krakower: So "enable" would be a more accurate job description for what you do than "accomplice". My apologies... Take only the children - what's left of them - and go.
Carmela Soprano: My priest said I should work with him, help him to become a better man.
Dr. Krakower: How's that going?

Dr. Krakower: Have you ever read Crime and Punishment? Dostoyevksy?
[Carmela shakes her head 'no']
Dr. Krakower: It's not an easy read. It's about guilt and redemption. I think your husband ought to turn himself and read this book in his jail cell and meditate on his crimes every day for seven years, so that he might be redeemed.
Carmela Soprano: I would have to get a lawyer, find an apartment, arrange for child support...
Dr. Krakower: You, you're not listening. I'm not charging you because I won't take blood money, and you can't, either. One thing you can never say is that you haven't been told.

This scene, by the way, is my single favorite scene in the entire series, because (I think) this is where Chase lays out his critique of the bad faith, and moral bankruptcy of modern life --- Doing the right thing is a necessary part of mental health and happiness. Necessary, but not sufficient. It's not that living ethically will bring you happiness, but living unethically is bound to rain misery down upon you and yours.

Diagnosis: Right on. But born in the wrong era.

I know I've missed a bunch. Who?