So Paultrarch finally got his Laura. And it only took seven hundred years.
What Jesus taught - given that someone reading this has bothered to read the gospels and not depended on some religious charlatan selling ads on his web site to inform them what he taught - is that the mind is a creative entity. Not a perceptual one. The mind exists and creates in the NOW. Use it with the discipline to acquire the "faith the size of a mustard seed" and you can move a mountain. Align with God within, and you can walk on water and heal the wounded.
An unhealed healer (Paul in particular, and his profession in general) is limited in their power to do these things, because they still allows their life to be directed by their unhealed memories (electrical short circuits of the creative mind) that only hinder the true nature of what the mind is for. The past does not exist. Decisions made when we were 7 (as with Sophie and Paul) can and do affect behavior today, but they do so from a field of memories and decisions that DO NOT EXIST.
The field of psychtherapy was invented to help us bring some of those short circuits out of the subconscious (90% of the mind) up to the conscious 10% so that we can rewire them. And be healed.
Like a religious institution, however, the practice of healing got all wrapped up on the therapist's ability to make mortgage payments and book the beach house every July on the Cape. So the emphasis shifted from healing to booking appointment after appointment after appointment after appointment. As long as Blue Cross keeps paying the bills...
Which leads to some meaty questions. Why has AA been so successful at changing self-defeating behaviors, while psychotherapy has not?
Why does the "change your mind" component of healing remain in the domain of the Sondra Rays and Louise Hays, and is all but ignored by the established Ph.d. healers?
The red states are full of people who subscribe to the "be strong, hold to your beliefs, be true to yourself, and damn the examined life" menal path.
The blue states are full of people who examine their mental short circuits ad nauseum, and make them more important than God or country or family, and (at least in Paul's case) even the self. Even the Self.
How will the two ever be reconciled unless psychotherapists start actually leading people (AA style) out of their self destructive, subconscious habits, and into actually healed states of living?
I think "In Treatment" is an indictment of the profession in exactly those terms.
In the end, the screen went to black and Paul's integration of his ideals directed his behavior (subconsciously, and at the bodily level of an anxiety attack - an homage to the Sopranos I think) out of his self defeating behavior.
Great. So the final conclusion is that the red state guys and the blue state guys are being healed subconsciously via exactly the same mechanism.
And in all of it, psychotherapy remains as impotent and possibly dangerous as Alex's father observed.
Gina tells Paul: "You won." "You did the right thing." "Take the credit [for making the right decision]"
The real question is how does someone work as a psychotherapist for so long, and then still have the attitude that one is somehow deserving of credit when the unconscious has to make them think they are dying in order to sabotage their misguided intentions. Paul wanted Laura. If something inside him wanted otherwise, then perhaps it deserves respect, to be heard. But how in the world does Paul deserve credit for what happened?
The ego and the unconscious are not the same thing. Almost all of the therapy I practiced in 17 years could be seen as helping people for whom their ego and the unconscious were at odds.
Paul doesn't own his unconscious. He can't take credit when something like a dream or anxiety attack stops him from his ego intentions. It's not like having washboard abs or a great singing voice.
The whole show was about strengthening people's egos and acting like the unconscious is an unpleasant visitor.
I wonder what would happen if the unconscious were treated as intelligent and purposeful, in a way that is superior to the ego. Isn't that how Jung saw it?
I have made the point again and again that I do not regard what Paul and Gina did as therapy because they never established a solid therapeutic contract. It was never clear whether he wanted therapy or supervision -- not that there is a lot of difference between the two. And their conflicted history and dual relationship made therapy an iffy proposition in any case. Paul needed to go to an outside therapist and still needs that. Nevertheless, I understand where Gina was coming from because Paul's panic attack was in fact the assertion of his best self over his fantasied desire.
I don't know that I agree with you that Jung saw the unconscious as superior to the ego. The purpose of the ego is to serve as the mediator between the outer world and the inner world. As Jung puts it:
"The ego stands to the self as the moved to the mover, or as object to subject, because the determining factors which radiate out from the self surround the ego on all sides and are therefore supraordinate to it. The self, like the unconscious, is an a priori existent out of which the ego evolves".[ CW 11, par. 391.]
Though the word "supraordinate" does not appear in any online dictionary or the OED for that matter, it would appear that your quote - using words like "determining," comparing "moved" to "mover" - is saying something confirming what I said, not contradicting it. I do not mean by "superior" in quality, not better than, but certainly more powerful, above in rank, and I'd like to imagine, wiser.
I understand where she was coming from too, but if this were thousands of years ago, it would be as if the god Hermes (or any deity) had intervened and she is giving Paul the credit for that intervention.
I think there's something out of whack here regarding ego and unconscious (and why not, since that is how the world is). If the unconscious is the "a prori existent out of which the ego involves" then a lot of therapy seems like assisted matricide. It's like when they tell you you're having "root canal therapy" but in fact they are putting your tooth to death.
I do understand the danger of regression. What about you? How would you describe the ego in relation to the unconscious?
I think that might make a good post, Philip -- I will work on it and post it within a few days.
I have had to hold in mind that the neither Paul nor Gina is a Jungian so the way they deal with things differs some from what I do. The series is informed by Stephen Mitchell's relational psychoanalysis.
I always got the impression that what Paul wanted (by seeing Gina) was to talk with someone who really knows who he is. At first, he even denied that Laura was an issue. And then, once he admitted it, it definitely seemed like he wanted permission or justification to explore what he and Laura might be.
While he blasts on Gina for things, ultimately, he would not pursue his interest in Laura without Gina's permission.
He doesn't trust himself. Not as a husband, a therapist, a father...
And yet he is so quick to counsel - it's almost rude sometimes, though it's clearly instinctive - almost as though it's easier to manuever other people's lives than his own.
My take may be wrong, but as I think of it, the only time that Paul doesn't look frightened or uneasy is when he is counseling Sophie. Not surprisingly, that is where he is most effective.
I know I'm not speaking of things Jungian and I hope that doesn't disqualify my comments! 
He went to Gina because he knew he needed supervision and he knew she knew about his father and his own history -- right instincts going on there. But then both of them screwed up by not developing a clear contract for what their work was about.
His quarreling with Gina was just classic resistance, the kind we see all the time. Patient comes in saying Help me and then resists that help -- it is part of the process.
The show isn't Jungian either.
That little mini story before the opening credits of Paul #9 was almost a novel in itself. If you see it again - look at Kate's eyes. Whoever directed that really got her to speak with them. First she was filled with hope that her husband was interested in her enough to watch her sleeping. Note the tone of open conciliation in her voice.
But Paul is steadfastly following his father's path, and she might as well not even still be there. (Why is she still there? I thought she left.) Then when Paul tells her he is going to see Laura, you can see her deflate. The reality of her situation comes right back to her, and she sinks back into resignation. Wow. Great piece of acting.
failed therapy? Was the therapist explicit, or did s/he merely hint? Was the therapist explicit at the level of education, sensation, accommodation of the client, or did the therapist hope the client absorbed the therapist fully, as if to become the therapist? WHO did the therapist want the client to be, and why?
Did the therapist go to the client's home? Did the therapist wander in the client's childhood house? How does the therapist know the client's aesthetics in the client's home actually reflect the client?
I see it as a failed therapy because of the acting out on Paul's part. Acting out, meaning going outside the boundaries of therapy, is destructive to the therapy and doubly so when it is the therapist who acts out. But it was I who made that assessment, not anyone within the story.
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