Fannish Five: Therapy!

[selenak]

5 canon pairings that could really benefit from couples therapy.

Unfortunately, the first example which came to mind actually got couple therapy, and benefited from it - Keith and David from Six Foot Under. I take it the question refers to couples who canonically would or could not follow suit. Let's see:

1.) Jack Bristow and Irina Derevko, Alias. Of course there's the problem that neither of them is likely to tell each other or the therapist the truth, but hey. They would benefit. Somehow. Um. At least it's better than plotting murder?

2.) Buffy Summers and Angel/Riley Finn/Spike, BTVS. Any of Buffy's three main love interests in the course of the show would do in this category. A shame that the sole fully qualified therapist (went to high school with Buffy, is a vampire) doesn't show up until season 7.

3.) The Doctor and River Song, Doctor Who. Each would keep a therapist busy for millennia. Together... Well, at least a therapist might arrange for a more even couple time? And work out how much of River's emotions are conditioned or rebellion against condition, and how much hails from actual aquaintance?

4.) Toby Ziegler and Andrea Wyatt, The West Wing. I mean, I loved their scenes together, all of them. But presumably couple therapy would have convinced Toby sooner that when Andi said "I won't marry you again", she meant "I won't marry you again"?

5.) Dream of the Endless (Morpheus) and anyone he was ever romantically involved with, The Sandman. Seriously. The poor therapist would probably conclude that making Dream celibate would benefit all creation for the rest of time. Considering.

Comments

[red_satin_doll]

There is actually one other therapist on BtVS (not counting Normal Again, of course), and that's the school counselor Buffy turns to after Angel has returned from Hell in Beauty and the Beast, It's the first time she's able to open up to someone about his return, which she's kept a secret, and of course he's already dead. (Doesn't help it's only the second POC on the show.) If I could give Buffy Summers anything - besides a vacation from Slaying, and a few good homecooked meals - it would be some major therapy.

I sometimes wonder what the lack of therapy on the show coupled with the doctor she sees in her hallucinations in Normal Again, are meant to communicate to the viewer about what the writers at ME think about the therapeutic model. Phyllis Chisler wrote an excellent, provocative book "Women and Madness" in 1971, back when most doctors and therapists were males, and most patients were women rebelling against or playing out traditional gender expectations, and the hierarchies and abuse inherent in that. We've come - a long way? I've never experienced what she describes but have felt the frustrations of going to a clinic, being given a pill with no blood testing or anything of the sort, no way to know objectively if it's helping; I've also gotten a lot of help from talk therapy with female therapists (I'm more comfortable with therapists of my own gender.)

So my personal experience has been a mixed bag, although I'm grateful for the options I've had available (and which Buffy apparently does not); and in trying to parse out what the show has to say, it's a mixed bag as well. the school therapist and Holden Webster are helpful, but she only interacts with each man once; one is dead the second time she encounters them and the second man she dusts at the end of the session. In S6 she could definitely use therapy and even some anti-depressants might not be amiss. But being poisoned by the demon seems to send a message - intended or not - that mood altering drugs are a bad thing; she's in tears to Willow during her admission of having been in a clinic (a retcon I think the presence of Dawn in the series makes entirely possible), but feels safe in that world, at least for a little while because she can imagine that she's safe and cared for and her parents are there. In the end, the implication seems to be that Buffy has to "snap out of it", and she's a hero in part BECAUSE she pulls herself up by her own bootstraps.

It may not be the writers intention, but the message "Snap out of it" "You just have to have willpower/Stop whining/get over it" is one that every person with depression I've talked to - and myself - have heard at one point or another, esp from close family members. (Friends are often more compassionate, but they don't have to live with the person every day.) And it's a message that has some validity but also it's limits, especially when someone is dealing with severe clinical depression and suicidal ideations - as Buffy is.