THERAPISTS on the SILVER SCREEN: fantasy or fact?

In psychoanalysis a screen memory covers up a deeper, more emotionally charged issue. Similarly, movie and television screens both shield and open us to human complexity through fiction. The opportunity to peer into shadow and secrets from a safe distance is irresistible. Depictions can range from the malevolent Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) to psychic empath Deanna Troy (Star Trek). Most on-screen therapists, however, like their real-world counterparts, are wounded healers doing their best to help despite sometimes substantial fallibilities. Bruce Willis (Sixth Sense) doesn’t realize he’s dead; Jennifer Melfi (The Sopranos) denies her mobster client’s sociopathy; and Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) is a comedic spoof of a psychiatrist. Jung says, “it is his own hurt that gives a measure of his power to heal.” 

 

Dream

I was attending a drag show, but I put on a costume and began to perform on stage. I was a background performer for someone else, and I was just walking around the stage. I felt like I wasn’t wearing the costume that I wanted to wear. I didn’t feel comfortable or confident. I also felt like I wasn’t getting cheered on by the crowd. I got off the stage and felt unseen. I remember seeing a pill bottle, and not knowing what it was, I took a pill. It was someone’s else’s medication that I stole. I spent the rest of the dream trying to hide in shame from taking someone else’s medicine, and anxiously waiting to see what the pill was going to do to me.