A GoodTherapy.org News Update

A recent exploration in the New York Times covers the standing of the on-screen psychotherapist, a classic role that seems to have been deteriorating for quite a while, despite a surge of interest in and use of therapeutic services. From illustrious beginnings depicting therapists as highly educated and insightful characters to modern representations that seem to delight in tearing down the credibility of the therapist, roles on television and in films have become less interested in the basics of psychotherapy, and far more focused on complex and often antagonistic characters that are somehow connected with the mental health professions.

As its case in point, the Times article points to Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the infamous flesh-eating villian from the popular film series initiated by Silence of the Lambs. Following the popularity of this character, who combines sometimes Freudian insights with a brutal and extremely violent “dark side,” creative media outlets have fashioned many other therapists who probably wouldn’t meet modern professional standards. Citing an upcoming movie in which actor Kevin Spacey portrays a drug and alcohol abusing therapist providing off-beat care to his clients, the article questions whether the decline of the on-screen therapist is a result of the need to deconstruct a profession often aimed at deconstructing its clients, or a simple and natural evolution of an archetype. Read the rest of this entry

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A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Judith Barr, MA, LMHC

Click here to contact Judith and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Today I saw the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It was a deeply moving film. I recommend it highly. And I also wish for you that you allow it to open your heart to yourself and others in a new way.

Benjamin (as you can read anywhere on the internet – so I’m not giving anything away) is born old and gets younger and younger through his life and the movie. You journey with him as he goes through the pains and joys, sorrows and comforts of life.

Again, without giving the movie away, I want to offer what moved me most . . .
That we witness, in reverse, Benjamin’s experience in life as an old man, its effect on him as he goes through his life, and his experience in life as a baby.

One of my early teachers about therapy taught this in my very first class with him – If you haven’t worked through your dependency issues in your childhood, early adulthood, or midlife . . . when you reach your elder years, you will be faced with them all over again, without the benefit of having resolved them.

Think about this. Feel it. We face and meet many of the same experiences in our elder years as we do when we are infants, babies, and children. We are often, no matter how fiercely independent we have come to be, dependent in some way on others who take care of us to some degree. Even before our elder years.

If we had parents who didn’t need for someone to be dependent on them to satisfy their wounded selves – their need to be loved, their need to have power, their need to be needed . . .
If we had parents who were fine to have someone be dependent on them and felt honored to have the task to cherish and to nourish that dependent child into his or her own unique self, becoming all he or she could possibly be . . .Then we have probably lived the passage through the dependency issues already – perhaps with a loose thread here or there that needs to be tended to.

But truthfully, how many people grew up with parents that evolved? That conscious? That un-wounded? That healed? Read the rest of this entry

Written by David Pierce

Click here to contact David Pierce and see his website: Friends Along the Road

Hollywood – in the tradition of classic mythopoeia – tends to use bereaved parents and spouses in pivotal roles. They are often examples of those who’ve been through life’s worst extremes, and play lunatics, killers, shamans, and heroes. Because they have been eaten raw by the universe and regurgitated into something new, unpredictable, and powerful, the severely bereaved are regarded in classic high literature with more than pity, with a mixture of fear and awe. This attitude is rendered clearly in “Lady in the Water,” a film by the director of “The Village” that left Judy and me in grateful astonishment, because it lay bare the path of our souls and rallied us to keep on going.

The protagonist is the stuttering caretaker/handyman of an apartment complex in Philadelphia, who discovers a sea-nymph in his quarters. She has been living underneath the swimming pool but has been sent to the surface by her people in order to impart inspiration into the life of one young man, an apartment resident who is a writer and whose book is destined to positively change the world. It turns out that the caretaker was once a doctor, but his wife and children were murdered, and ever since he has sought anonymity in his terrible grief. Yet he is chosen for a heroic role as a facilitator between the nymph and the person she must contact. To accomplish this goal, he follows the patterns of the great myth and draws upon the unique archetypal strengths of each of the residents, seemingly ordinary and disparate individuals who come together in a profound whole. With the help of everyone in the complex, the caretaker becomes The Healer, uniting the powers of The Interpreter, The Guardian, The Guild, and The Seven Sisters.

This is the story I have always dreamed of – of common people united in a great purpose. This movie has everything to say to those having lived for years with deep grief, who have risen, been crushed, risen again, foundered, and kept on going. It shows that even those from whom almost all has been taken may have an important purpose…something that can unite us all.

©Copyright 2007 David Pierce. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact David Pierce and see his website: Friends Along the Road