In Treatment

I love this year's season of In Treatment so far. The episodes are much snappier than last year, having been reduced to under a half hour in actual time, which prevents any of the sessions from getting too tedious as they did last year on occasion. This show is just too smart to be ignored (unfortunately, this fact hasn't helped Friday Night Lights). The show does raise some interesting questions for those of us not initiated into the world of psychotherapy. I suppose expecting a distinct phase of diagnosis and then treatment might be unfairly importing a medical paradigm that is not relevant or effective here, but it does seem that Dr. Weston has no structure to his therapy, and I wonder if this is typical. Another issue, do therapists have trouble staying sane and grounded listening to all these crazies every day. Either way, it seems hard to believe that these sorts of conversations are helpful. Luckily, Paul and Gina seem to know the whole thing is a crock, which makes their sessions particularly interesting.