That Was The Week That Was

[handful_ofdust]

Best thing about looking after my Mom: Watching a lot of In Treatment, the week-daily half-hour show about Gabriel Byrne as a psychiatrist. It's an incredibly simple, classic exercise in compact storytelling and dazzling acting. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Byrne sees his current patients, who include Hope Davis as a scathingly smart neurotic, Alison Pill as a girl with acute lymphoma who hasn't begun chemo yet--or even told her family about it--because (wait for it) she has a severely autistic older brother who takes up everybody else's attention, a young boy whose behavioral problems mirror his parents' impending divorce, and John Mahoney as a retirement-age Big Pharma executive who's just been blamed and dumped for a brand-wrecking business scandal. On Fridays, meanwhile, Byrne goes to see his own therapist (played by Dianne Wiest), and tries his best not to deal with his own problems: His failed marriage, his loneliness, the affair he's sort-of-having with a female childhood friend, the fact that he's become the primary caregiver for his estranged father, who's probably going to die very soon, and he can't make himself go see him on a regular basis because he's still so angry at him over various unresolved issues.

Each episode pays out in real-time, with that constant back-and-forth conversational mirroring ("So you're saying blah blah blah blah blah?" "Of course I'm not saying that!" "Then what are you saying? What are we really talking about?") which characterizes most therapeutic interaction; Byrne lets his patients talk but manages the flow, gently reflecting their own concerns back to them, until they realize what it is that they're avoiding or trying to understand, this time 'round. He points out patterns, refrains, repetition that they might (probably do) otherwise gloss over in order to just bull their way through the rest of they day. He's certainly not perfect himself, however, because that'd be incredibly boring--his own deep empathy with his patients often leads him into dicey situations. Which explains a big part of how, though on first glance this seems like the sort of SAG Showcase intellectual pain-porn I'd find particularly egregious, I actually ended up finding it incredibly compelling.

One big mystery is why Byrne's character, who seems to have lived his whole life in America, has a distinct Irish accent. The simplest explanation is probably that Byrne himself does, and simply opted not to blunt his emotional openness by struggling to manufacture a fake American dialect on top of everything else. It's a wise choice, because the camera's on him pretty much from beginning to end, searching deep for any hint of falsehood, and never finding one.

Soft brogue: So what are we really talkin' about here, Gemma? Well, I can't say it didn't make me slightly nostalgic for my own days "on the couch"--but barring any legitimately traumatic occurrence, I truly do think that part of my life is over. Yes, every once in a while my Mom suggests I might get something out of it--not this time, thankfully--but considering that my first conscious response to that thought is always: Oh Christ, I really just don't have the time, maybe not. Besides, it's now just nine more days 'til I can start working out again; that'll help.

Comments

[sovay]

Watching a lot of In Treatment, the week-daily half-hour show about Gabriel Byrne as a psychiatrist.

My cousin who is a clinical psychologist loves that show, including the fact that it calls the protagonist on his unprofessional behavior (as opposed to the wide variety of legal shows that assume it's standard practice for lawyers to sleep with their clients, etc.); I've contemplated watching it solely for Gabriel Byrne, but I'm glad the rest of it is as good. Are you going to watch the Israeli original for comparison?

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Agh, yes--psychiatrist/psychologist. I never could get that distinction right, even back when I was In Treatment myself.

I guess I could probably find the Israeli version on Youtube, yeah? That being what it's for.;)

[baggyeyes]

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[sovay]

Agh, yes--psychiatrist/psychologist. I never could get that distinction right, even back when I was In Treatment myself.

My mother is also a clinical psychologist. I grew up knowing the difference.

(You want prescriptions, don't ask her.)

[the-reverand.livejournal.com]

I made a point to watch several of the Blair Underwood eps back when they were first airing. I really liked it, even apart from perving over Underwood and Byrne, whom I've always liked. And I loved that Weist was his own shrink! But it did get a bit whiney after a while, maybe because I wasn't keeping up very well. I'm terrible at watching television.

Anyway, I'd totally see shrink if it was him. Yes.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

young boy whose behavioral problems mirror his parents' impending divorce

Hey, I think E.C. Comic's Psychiatrist used to treat that kid....