Hollywood Therapists

Therapists have a lot of cultural stereotypes to live down. Most of us are not dazzling or even gallant as some Hollywood movies would have you believe (witness "Awakenings") and while some of us are quite possibly bullies like Dr. Phil, it's rare, or so I believe. (Please, don't even get me started on the horrors of Dr. Phil, peddling cheap shots at people in extreme pain for monetary gain and spectacle - NOT that I have strong feelings about him dragging down my profession by the weight of his coin purses, his heavy absence of true compassion, blindingly huge ego and unethical boundary violations, oh-dear-me-no!) In short, I believe that most of us therapists try hard to be, and are, decent human beings.

Let's take a look at what psychotherapists are up against.

First off, there's the image of the therapist as "Dr. Loony Toons" like Dr. Crane on TV's "Frasier" and Mel Brooks' tour de force in "High Anxiety." All neuroses, crazier-than-their-patients zany and over-the-top wacky. No help there, folks! They really put the word "psycho" in psychotherapist.

Or how about "Dr. Homicidal Maniac" a la Hannibal Lechter, evil to say the least, shady at best and mind-boggling in his ability to inspire fear (and putting a whole new spin on the idea of "having lunch together.")

Then we have the image of the therapist as "Dr. Fantastic" - brilliant in his or her deductive reasoning, able to pinpoint the ONE event in a patient's life that has stymied them throughout life, and to magically remove its power merely by naming it - oh, that I could have that power! (oh that this was clinically valid - and for those of you who doubt it, it's not!!)

And then there's "Dr. Stick Up Butt" as in the old meanie who tries to ruin a child's Christmas on "Miracle on 34th Street." Those therapists! Always getting in the way of folks trying to have a good time!

Barbra Streisand's portrayal of an unethical boundary-busting sexual libertine on "Prince of Tides" was not a great professional moment for us. I don't want to give the impression that I have my head in the sand about therapists violating boundaries, even sexual ones, with clients. Therapists do it more than we realize. It's just hard to have out there as an iconic representation of one's professional field.

To my mind, one of the most scary and stand-out portrayals of therapist as "Dr. Crazy" goes to Richard Dreyfus' portrait of a therapist driven even crazier than his initial presentation as an uptight, OCD, money-grubbing and self-serving Narcissist by the demands of a needy and relentless patient, played by Bill Murray. This therapist is unable to hang on to his own sanity in the face of his client's desperation and becomes unhinged, thus joining the ever-growing list of Hollywood's celluloid images of us therapists as even sicker than our clients. What hope is there for any of us with therapists like that out there?

I can't think of one single image in Hollywood that shows a therapist in anything other than a flawed manner. We're either morbidly curious, sexually predatory, unhinged sociopaths, moody and voyeuristic, power hungry and money-grubbing, or hapless and stupid. Yeah, yeah. I know that we're all flawed. But come on! Hannibal Lechter flawed??