Hi, all:
Glen, I think you’re being overgenerous about the writing in this episode. OK, the scene in Rhode Island was one for the books, but when the writer has to resort to so many coincidences to make an overall storyline work, something’s amiss. The writer seems to have really lost (or intentionally dropped) the psychological thread of the characters’ development. He’s now relying on “happy accidents” to keep the balls in the air (that is to say, to keep Ralphie and Johnny alive). How likely is it that Meadow would become interested in legal-aid work and thereby meet Elliot’s daughter, AND that then Elliot would find himself menacing (yes, I’d say HE was the bully) the patient whose treatment is driving Elliot’s own patient to distraction?
Do we therapists find that our own loved ones—or we ourselves—are sometimes just as lost as our patients or their kids are? Obviously. Is that really news? As Harry Stack Sullivan said, we are all “more simply human than otherwise”—that is, we humans (patient and therapist alike) are all more alike than different. What is egregious here is either the poor writing or Elliot’s poor technique. Either the writer thinks that Elliot’s foolish encroachment on Tony in the garage IS akin to Jennifer’s encounter with the rapist (farfetched, I’d say), or Elliot is straining under the disturbing recognition of his own aggression to the degree that he would justify mentioning it as part of his therapeutic approach to Jennifer. Makes me wish I could apologize on behalf of all us clinicians for those moments in which our own psychic struggles cause us to lose focus and become misattuned … but that would be presumptuous of me!
Peggy
