Wednesday, December 08, 2010

In Treatment: Adele, Week 7


Paul starts with the usual: he blames Adele for giving him bum advice and says she is responsible for Sunil's deportation. Ho hum.

Adele is in his face with how stuck his life is--- hmmm, didn't this guy just get divorced, move to Brooklyn, have his kid, leave his kid? I guess those don't count. Paul announces he's decided on the spot to stop practicing psychotherapy. Independently wealthy, I presume. And yesterday he broke off with his girlfriend and felt nothing. And then, in a rare moment of insight, Paul tells Adele he is stopping therapy, that it is just a repetition of the same patterns and he can't continue with this painstaking examination of transferential feelings. Adele implores him to stay; these people seem to feel that therapy is essential to life and that no change is possible without it. Paul says no, he must go. It seems like his first true insight in years. And then he announces he is no longer her patient and so it's fine if she tells him if she ever thought the two of them could be together. Some things never change? Until next year?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Paul walking away into the anonymous swirl of the crowd was a fitting ending, perhaps...

This entire 3rd season was filled with completely unbelievable behavior at almost every turn.

Paul literally threw his 50-something Lothario at Adele in the final act, and sorry... but I thought it was hilarious. And completely implausible.

Paul seemed to be heading for a Werner Erhard/EST moment where he finds his own path to a better cult experience, one with definitive master-neophyte overtones and very large fees.

Anonymous said...

You mean the Landmark Forum?

Sarebear said...

Like a moth to a flame. A phrase my therapist has used about me, in recent sessions. What is it about human nature that makes us keep doing stupid things? Not that I'm doing what he's doing, I have my own brand(s) of stupidity (okay, so that's labeling, CBT moment here lol.)

Anyway, the forbidden is often the most powerful and thus draws one, as, well, a moth to a flame. THAT's why, human nature, as it is to moths . . . I just want to stop being a moth. Um. Anyway.

Guess I see a bit too much of me in this, despite the differences in WHAT the behavior is. Been identifying alot with some elements of these storylines lately; powerful stuff.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Landmark Forum... or Lifespring, back in the day... throw in perhaps a bit of Big Love where the very large fees come attached w/ a gentleman of some stature and a refined age. It's all tragicomic in the end...