i have gotten hooked on the HBO series In Treatment. each night of the Week, a different patient. Monday, Laura, an over sexualized Anesthesiologist who has been in therapy with Paul for a long time. She confuses her love for him, and sparks a tail spin of "erotic counter transferance for Paul, the therapist"
Laura was a product of a couple where her mom dies and father withdraws into a depression. Laura meets David and his wife and we learn stayed with them for a summer in california but David continues to see a 15 year old Laura when he is a on a business trip. It comes out that Laura started having sex with him at age 15. She played out that primary need for her father through her relationship. She meets Alex, Tuesday patient and has sex with him. She interacts with the men in her life through sex. She is on the verge of getting married and terminates her therapy. She sees PAUL one last time when her dad who is hospitalized and attends another crisis session. She sees Paul again at Alex's funeral and struggles with seeing him outside of the therapy room. She pulls away and finally leaves.
Laura interacts with the world through sex and sexuality though she has a responsible job as an anesthesiologist. Her disorder and relationship with the world gets played out in her therapy. She is planning to marry a man who asked her whom she doesnt love but it seems that she can manipulate. The relationship is sexual though she doesnt seem to like sex with Andrew. She is self destructive and a little dangerous to herself. Laura seems to like to control the situation and how it plays out. Her relationship with Paul is part father, part fantasy lover. She works with Paul on how she uses sex with men.
Alex is a airforce pilot who comes to therapy after a mission where he bombed a school in Iraq and killed 16 people. Though his therapy, we see that he grew up with a contolling, demanding father, who was a civil rights activist and smothered his own father as a mercy killing. Alex during therapy, leaves his wife and son, struggles wiht his sexual identity, picks up and sleeps with Laura but suffers sexual dysfunction. After he starts therapy, Alex goes back to Iraq and visits the school and reports on it. His bringing Paul an expensive coffee maker is explored but not handled well as Paul allows it to stay. Alex, leaves his wife, moves in with friends, as she is a controlling, demanding woman who plans everything. Alex who has a son struggles with not transferring "how to be a father like his father to his son" but doesnt really know how to get along with his own son. His son, reported as a bright kid who doesnt have many friends and plays chess, is a concern for Alex and we see many of the explanation of others around Alex as his own projection. As the series continues, we realize that others may be extension of Alex or his perceived self. Again we find a man where he left his wife and denied a reunion with his wife in a 5 star hotel. He choose to hang out with his new found gay friends. In the venue where he hangs with the gay friends, he is the center of attention and desirable.
We learn Alex's father was a civil rights leader who has a wife ( alex's mother) who is submissive. Alex has to face that he married a woman like his father.
Sophie an olympic gymnast who suffers an accident that we learn becomes 3 accidents, really suicide attempts. She runs her bike into a car, takes too many aspirin in her therapist office and ends up with a dislocated shoulder. She is angry and vindictive against her mother. We learn that she has been sent to live in gym camp and moves in with her coach to care for his daughter while his wife is away. At `16 she has sex with him after sleeping in bed with him for about a month. His wife returns and Sophie moves out. She doesnt believe it is wrong but early on in the series, Paul questions sexual abuse and Sophie denies it. Later we learn that she has been exposed to her father's nude models and as a 7 year old observes her father having sex with women not her mother. Though her relationship with her father, who she idolizes, she colludes to keep the secrets from her mom. Her parents split and she internalizes it as her fault. Sophie is an angry adolescent who is very smart and can use her natural intelligence in therapy. She is not short on words and can curse up a storm. Through therapy, we see Sophie grow and start to understand that she is angry at the wrong sources. Again Paul become a positive, stable father figure. Sophie's father, a photographer is inconsistent with Sophie and as they are in a pattern of her idolizing him, he takes advantage of that fact and in the last Sophie episode we meet her father, who comes to town after her meet and expects Sophie to be available. We meet a changed Sophie who tells her father in front of Paul, that Paul knows her better. WE are lead to believe that Sophie's father comes to town because Sophie doesnt return his calls. But thats not believable, there have to be other reasons why he came, his own business because his pattern doesnt show enough to Sophie. He was with a woman who refused to take Sophie in and he remained with her for two years. Sophie ends up confronting him with this facts. We see Sophie practicing some of these and clarifying these with Paul. Sophie tests limits. She lifts her shirt and shows Paul her breasts, and mocks him. She is demeaning and sometimes plain mean to him. He remains consistent and there for her. She tries to get him to reject her and he refuses. Paul is the "good object" that Sophie needs. She drinks too much, eats too little, and lashes out at her mom. Paul calls her on that and sides with her mom.
Paul is technically pretty sound with Sophie. He uses her transference in a healing manner for her. Sophie grows alot during her treatment.
Amy and Jake are the hardest for me to watch. They enter therapy with Paul to deal with a pregnancy that they are thinking to terminate. We meet them as a couple and individually. As a couple, they hurt each other and can be vicious and then have just as passionate sex to make up. We learn that they are stuck in patterns. We sees these patterns played out in their therapy. Amy has a miscarriage and the couple continues. Paul explains that some couples come out of therapy stronger and some decide to end their marriages. Amy and Jake get a chance to examine their relationship. Amy makes more money and is in the corporate world and Jake is a singer songwriter who gives guitar lessons. We see this couple violent with each, She hits him and he tapes he on his cellphone and plays it back over and over and over, her words used against her like a weapon. the intensity of their love and hate or sex and hate is played out in the therapy...stories of sex. Amy explains that after a passionate and angry sexual encounter, Jake threatens to kill her while still inside her.
When we meet Amy alone, we learn she was a very overweight child who witnessed her fathers death. They went out for ice cream cones and Amy was going to get a second and when she returned her father had a heart attack. During her adolescents she dieted and never regained her weight. Her needs for control and to hurt other was explained. Her feelings or lack thereof for her son was also explored. She comes to Paul with knowledge that she will be picked up by her boss who she plans to screw. She was married when she met Jake and cheated on her then husband, a country club snob as described by Jake and started up with him.
When we meet Jake alone, we hear about his growing up with two university professor parents where literature and languages were prevalent in the home. Jake reports feeling neglected and never being able to meet up the expectations his parents have. His brother is writer who is nominated for some award. Jake a guitar play has a huge vocabulary and Paul recognizes his intelligence. Jake and Paul have sons the same age and Jake is empathetic to his son. We see real emotion from Jake. He cares about his marriage, the effect on his son and cries as they discuss divorce. He finds out that Amy screwed around on him and they will be separating. This separation is also something that Jake explores is a disappointment for his father. Jakes reports that he met a woman who was unhappy in a relationship and he took her away, thinking she would be happy. She wasnt. they had a baby, he thought that would make her happy. It did not. He felt that he had be misled by Amy. He felt deceived and couldnt recover from that. He started to pull away...
Paul doesnt do a good job with couples.....
Paul begins to see Gina on Friday. We learn his father is in a rehab center with Alzheimer's. A doctor who leaves his wife and kid and runs off with a younger patient. Paul has three children, one in college, a daughter Sophie's age who begs him to fix the relationship with his wife ( her mom) and Max the youngest. Paul finds out that his wife is having an affair and goes off to Rome with her lover. Paul vacillates between hurt and anger, internalized and acted out. His wife, learns that she was like a patient and Paul would listen to her and could understand her behavior. We learn from their therapy with Gina, that Paul doesnt turn off his being a therapist with his wife. WE see him extend himself, give his cellphone to his clients and extending patient boundaries while he doesnt know much about his daughter's life. His home life suffers as he spends his energy on his patients. His wife's affair is a symptom of the relationship.
Paul enters therapy to deal with his counter transference with Laura who he thinks he is love with. He returns to Gina, a friend from the institute who doesnt support his application to be the Director. His mentor betrays him he feels. they have a long understanding and its seems she knows his history as she raises issues for Paul between his father and He and Laura. He gets angry with her and many times he is also sniping with Gina. He tests her and bounces his anger off her accusing her. He is presumptuous about her life but really its only a reflection of his own feelings. Paul uses Gina as a blank slate and she allows it. Her interventions are technically sound and she is a good therapist. She remains calm and holds her composure at some pretty wild accusations Paul makes. She calls him up when he talks about his clients and not himself.
Midway though Friday, we see paul and his wife in therapy to deal with their issues driectly. WE see his wife start to grow and realize she may have outgrown Paul. She doesnt need his protection or fatherly nature. She grows up and we get a sense that Paul is replacing the needy woman with Laura. Paul needs to be needed and she doesnt need him any more. Paul and she start to explore their feelings. Gina uses a techique called Imago, a seventy pop psych techique to get adults to talk. Its is effect though Paul is pissing and moaning about Imago and refuses to participate. HE reluctantly does and we learn alot about his wife and children. Paul is a therapy snob and not a very good patient. He is arrogant and condescending to Gina and his wife...
Gina negates to deal with family life cycle that they may be starting hte empty nest syndrome and with the children needing less, they are left to face themselves and reevaluate their relationship. Couple split up at this stage in the life cycle.
Paul returns alone and he accuses Gina of many things, including not knowing what she writes, hiding away in her study and not seeing real life. He extends his charges to how Gina feel in love with a patient and hurts him,giving up a good man. Gina finally unleashes at Paul and we learn more about Gina. Paul was totally off and we learn that he was projecting all his stuff on her. Gina reflects their relationship as attacking one another or slapping each other around. Paul is admonished finally and Gina throws him out of her office.
Paul receives a visit by Alex's father and we see that confidentiality extends into death. Alex's father finds out that Paul is not a friend of Alex but his therapist and comes to see Paul to see if he can find out what may have killed Alex. it becomes clear that Alex may have killed himself. or didnt save himself. WE hear the same stories we heard from Alex about his father and son through the eyes of his dad.
Lastly, Paul goes to meet Laura and confronts his counter transference. Laura is firm and tries to get Paul to understand that he is not in love with her. She explains what she learns but as paul insists, she enters the bedroom and undresses. Paul who reports to Sophie he has a history of panic attacks, has one and leaves Laura's apartment to visit Gina.
In treatment, isnt always technically sound.... sometimes the therapy is too dry and moves the plot forward. Paul is an overinvolved and crippled therapist. HE is a wounded healer who has the same or similar issues as his clients. How can he remain neutral or not judgemental. HIs transference extends beyond his "erotic Transference for Laura." Each client represents something about Paul's own life
Use of phrases like "mia" and "annie" for bulimia and anorexia was out of place and seemed to be condescending to the audience by the writers. There were other such events that caused my hair to stand on end.
when we see Paul last.... He has no clients... Laura leaves therapy...cured?
Alex leaves and gets killed
Sophie moves to Training camp in Denver.
Jake and Amy are divorcing and succeeded in figuring out what they want
and Paul remains with Gina...
