‘In Treatment’ Israeli TV Drama on HBO
The most talked about Israeli drama got snatched up by HBO recently and will be airing next week on the pay for cable channel. According to Ms. Stanley, it seems the show should make quite a splash State side as well.
From the NYT:
Four Days, a Therapist; Fifth Day, a Patient
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Some things sound simply awful: a family reunion holiday cruise, an all-you-can-eat haggis buffet, a television series set entirely in a psychotherapist’s office.
And that is the premise of “In Treatment,” a series that begins Monday on HBO. For nine weeks, five nights a week, viewers are invited to sit in on the therapy sessions of Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne). He treats four patients (five, actually, since one session is with a married couple), and then on the fifth day he discusses his demons with his own therapist, Gina (Dianne Wiest).
Electroshock therapy might seem more welcome.
“In Treatment,” however, is hypnotic, mostly because it withholds information as intelligently as it reveals it. Each night a new half-hour episode follows a different patient’s session. In every session the patients’ words are veined with allusions and elusions, clues to problems or patterns that are invisible to them but absorbing for the viewer.
Freud famously described psychoanalysis as archaeology, the unearthing of meaning layered deep beneath an “expanse of ruins.” In television and movies it’s closer to a detective story.
Suspicion shifts from suspect to suspect in a police procedural; on shrink shows there is one suspect, and suspicion shifts from symptom to symptom — “Law & Disorder.” These investigators could use some analysis of their own. Paul, the craggy, caring healer, has serious family problems, while his mentor, Gina, wise and warm as cocoa and cinnamon toast, is not as benevolent as she seems.
This is not HBO’s first attempt to explore psychotherapy of course. The founding principle — and opening joke — of “The Sopranos” involved a mobster who consults a therapist. Lately, however, HBO seems to have developed something of a compulsion.
In September it offered “Tell Me You Love Me,” about a sex therapist and three couples in her care. The series blended graphic sex scenes with a plodding, sorrowful look at marriage and its discontents. But there was never much doubt about the underlying cause of all that marital tension: marriage.
Showtime has left deep tracks on the psychic landscape with its series “Huff,” which ran from 2004 to 2006 and starred Hank Azaria as a successful therapist who starts to fall apart after a patient’s suicide. (The therapist with an issue has become almost a television cliché, a white-coat version of the whore with the heart of gold. In 2006 ABC tried out “Help Me Help You,” a short-lived sitcom that starred Ted Danson as a therapist who, on his own time, is on the brink of a crackup.)
Sometimes, however, a series is just a series. “In Treatment” is not a sign of network post-traumatic stress disorder but of HBO’s inner resilience. This show is smart and rigorous, with a concentration that bores deep without growing dull. Particularly after the lackluster performance of “Tell Me You Love Me,” it is commendable that HBO chose a show that is entirely wrapped around the practice of psychotherapy; the camera rarely leaves Paul’s office, and when it does, it is to record his sessions in Gina’s office.
“In Treatment” is not entirely a plunge into the unknown, however. The show is HBO’s version of “Be’ Tipul,” one of Israel’s most successful and most talked about dramas ever. The American adaptation hews close to the original, with minor adjustments: a patient is a combat veteran of the Iraq war, not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It also helps that Paul’s patients have an interesting patchwork of neuroses. Laura (Melissa George) is a young, very pretty hospital worker with a fierce erotic attachment to her therapist. Alex (Blair Underwood) is an ace Navy pilot who had a heart attack after a disastrous bombing mission in Iraq. Sophie (Mia Wasikowska) is a 16-year-old schoolgirl and a gifted gymnast who may have suicidal impulses as well as an unhealthy relationship with her coach. Jake and Amy (Josh Charles and Embeth Davidtz) are a couple straining over whether to have a second child.
All of them are intelligent, cagey and hard to classify, let alone treat. And as the problems pile up, Paul’s confidence begins to sag.
The half-hour episodes are addictive, and few viewers are likely to be satisfied with just one session at a time. Bending to the age of the Internet, DVR and DVD, HBO is making it easy for viewers to indulge. All the previous episodes about a given character will be shown again on that character’s night, and Sundays will have marathons of the previous week’s episodes.
Therapy five days a week may seem like more than even the most exacting psychoanalyst could expect, yet it’s still not enough. “In Treatment” provides an irresistible peek at the psychopathology of everyday life — on someone else’s tab.
7 comments:
It’s a fascinatingly realistic portrayal of what therapist’s do when they close the door. Intelligent and engrossing.
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Does anyone know where I can purchase the DVD of the Israeli TV series that inspired HBO’s In Treatment?
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hbo has hit the jackpot again !
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Insightful and hypnotic especially for therapists. I just hoped that Paul would behave more professionally. Throwing coffee at Alex and cursing him just won’t do.
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IMO psychotherapy today is at the stage where alchemy was in the Middle Ages. However, without alchemists experimenting and trying to make “gold aus scheisse (German),” modern chemistry wouldn’t have developed. So I encourage psychotherapists to keep trying.
Regarding the “In Treatment” series:
I think Paul should try psychosynthesis on himself and patients. In season 2.
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SOMEONE? please tell us WHERE to purchase
‘be tipul’ the israeli version. thanks
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From a theatrical point of view, “In Treatment,” HBO’s delicate adaptation of the Israel hit series, “Be’Tipul,” is the most honest and intelligent representation of the potential of good psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy on any screen to date.
Gabriel Byrne’s portrayal of a skilled, and vulnerably flawed, psychologist is quite believable. His suseptibility to the trap of unacknowledged counter-transference and his resistance to its interpretation by his believable supervising analyst, Diane Wiest, is a classic response to a failing marriage. Only their failure to consider the borderline personality disorder features of one of his needy patients, believably played by Melissa George, appears to be an oversight resulting from the personal obstacles of both psychologists.
Blair Underwood, as Alex, is a convincing perfectionistic Iraq War Navy Pilot in denial about the emotional abuse of his demanding father, who is brilliantly played by Glynn Turman.
Embeth Davidtz is stunning in her portrayal of a successful achiever whose wounded childhood keeps her enmeshed in a conflict-ridden relationship with an equally-wounded husband, whose defenses are skillfully masked by Josh Charles.
Mia Wasikowska plays an aspiring 16 year-old Olympic gymnast with self-destructive impulses caused by multiple childhood boundary invansions of male predators. She has locked in a great future for herself with her wonderful performance in this series.
Rodrigo Garcia’s intelligent and sensitive directing and adaptational writing is definitely worthy of an Emmy.
Of course, Executive Producer of the American adaptation, Hagai Levi is the creative genius responsible for the original Israeli production.
Noa Tishby, the Israeli actress who brought the original series to her manager, Stephen Levinson who presented the idea to Carolyn Strauss, President of Entertainment at HBO are all to be congratulated and thanked for raising the quality- bar for American television.
From the neuroscience point of view, the recent functional Magnetic Resonance evidence that good pyschotherapy as well as psychopharmalogical treatment both create strutural changes in the brain that result in changed perception, behavior and function, has established the scientific value of psychiatry and psychology.
From the American cultural point of view, “In Treatment” is the first up-close, valid theatrical demonstration of that value.
Perhaps there are those who, because of unsuccessful experiences with unskilled therapists, or other reasons, may find the episodes of In Treatment unconvincing.
Nevertheless, I suspect there will be many who will welcome this series as a reasonable example of how careful listening and reflective introspection can create a critical mass of corrective learning experience and add meaning and hope and better decisions in the life of intelligent victims of damaged early development.
It might not be too far-fetched to imagine a country where its citizens expected their political leaders to possess the kind of introspection and insight that can come from such corrective experiences. Such expectations could protect the country from the flawed leadership often associated with damaged origins that we sometimes see.
Perhaps the next best thing to being in treatment, is to watch “In Treatment.”
Ange Lobue, MD, MPH, BSPharm
Diplomate, American Board of
Psychiatry and Neurology and
Performer Member, Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences
trinidadca@gmail.com
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