In Treatment 3x12

In last week’s session Paul mentioned Max’ drawings being gloomy and dark. We’ve seen some of his work now, a cityscape from a bird’s eye perspective. When Paul asked who’s point of view it was Max sad, “no one’s, I guess.” Then Paul unfolded a thrown away sketch and sees a previous attempt of a cityscape, with an eagle spreading its wings ominously. No wonder Paul worries about his son. Paul justified coming back to Adele because he doesn’t know how to tell Max about his symptom of Parkinson’s. One day, they are getting ready to go to a show. Max is googling the address and notices an abundance of links to Parkinson’s in the browser history. “Dad?” he asks anxiously. His session with Adele is a hoot. Not because there’s anything remotely funny Paul brings up, but because the way he is avoiding questions, dodging bullets, and still questions her competence. She asks him about his headaches, he talks about Parkinson’s; she asks him about Max, he talks about Jesse; she returns the conversation to Max, he starts talking about Gina; she points out he’s avoiding her questions, he begs her to bear with him. He’s struggling with all of these issues.

Somewhere, I’m sure, he’s worried that Gina was right about him, in that he invests so much in his patients that he is incapable of maintaining a meaningful relationship outside of his practice. He’s worried that he is losing touch with his son. He sympathizes with Jesse’s adoptive mother, because he is afraid his ex-wife’s new partner is taking his children away from him. He’s wondering if he is still able to remain objective with his patients – or if he’s ever been. Not in so many words, but truly, he’s asking Adele to take over Gina’s role as his supervisor. It’s only halfway through the session that Paul opens up, tells her about the incident the other night with Max and how it was the worst possible way to break the bad news to him, but that he slept through the night for the first time in months. In the end, Adele wraps it all up, proving once again how incredibly intelligent she is, by indicating Paul’s consistent need for help, his desire to be comforted – and, what’s more, that it seems to her to stem from his own fear of being incompetent, that he has convinced himself that he is incapable. “Why would I do that?” Paul sighs twice over, realizing how right she is. I was so enthralled, I could barely breathe. What a superb show!