One therapist's empathy threatens to consume his life. Another is so narcissistic she holds sessions while being fitted for her wedding dress. A third manages to help her patients but is in such personal disarray she does not know which colleague fathered her child.
As if in answer to the country's economic woes and general anxiety, there are suddenly an awful lot of shrinks on TV. Varying from the sublime to the ridiculous, these doctors create a microcosm of television's, and popular culture's, evolving relationship with psychoanalysis.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, May 09, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 23 words Type of Material: Correction
TV psychiatrists: An article in Thursday's Calendar section about television psychiatrists misspelled the last name of "Desperate Housewives" star James Denton as Fenton.
At opposite ends of the spectrum are HBO's "In Treatment," in which Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) and his therapist Gina (Dianne Wiest) provide aspirational therapy, and Starz's "Head Case," which plays more like "What About Bob?" meets "Entourage." Matching egos with the likes of Kevin Nealon, Tori Spelling and Jeff Goldberg, Alexandra Wentworth's Dr. Elizabeth Goode practices something closer to psycholo-me.
In between are the Team Players, including Dr. Violet Turner (Amy Brenneman) on "Private Practice" (she of the DNA-test aversion) and Dr. Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley) on "Bones." Nor should we overlook the Special Guest Star Therapists, such as "MASH's" Dr. Sidney Freedman (Allan Arbus), one of the originals, and newcomers like "Grey's Anatomy's" Dr. Katharine Wyatt (Amy Madigan) and "Bones' " Dr. Gordon Wyatt (Stephen Fry).
It's a strange proliferation considering how culturally passe therapy has become. Although there were a few earlier attempts before "The Bob Newhart" Show" premiered in 1972 ("The Psychiatrist" premiered in 1970 as part of a rotation with "McCloud" and "Night Gallery" but sunk after six episodes), a comedy about a therapist and his patients was edgy, requiring the deadpan, everyman talents of one of the top stand-ups in the business.
Almost 40 years later, pretty much everyone's been in therapy -- and compiling a comprehensive list of TV therapists would be an exercise in madness. "The Sopranos" had the last big twist on TV series psychology by sending a mobster to the couch. The relationship between Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) and Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) tested the limits of what therapy could accomplish in a water-cooler way.
But since then, shrinks have lost much of their zeitgeist sizzle. Conversation-worthy insight and irritating advice is more likely to be delivered by personal trainers, nutritionists, AA sponsors and Oprah than a therapist, and comedians are more likely to discuss the revelatory experience of a colonic.
