In Treatment 3x24

Adele left a message earlier in the week because an hour had opened up that Paul might perhaps take advantage of so they may return to their truncated session and discuss some lingering concerns. Her awkward voice message is loaded with meaningful pauses, significant silences. And Paul certainly picks up on the fact that she called him first thing in the morning, from her private number. Apparently that makes him feel he has an advantage, because he doesn’t catch bait. Adele begins the regular session asking about Sunil. Paul interprets this as an invitation to act out his fantasy of discussing his patients with her. She is just concerned that Paul is unable to separate himself from his patients, is unable to act decisively, and is blind to the fact that Sunil is a potential threat to his surroundings. Just like Sunil, Paul is stuck debating the difference between “pushing” someone and “pushing past” someone. The moment they disagree, Paul reverts back to platitudes that she doesn’t understand the situation, doesn’t know the intricacies, and has no idea what she is talking about.

Then they are interrupted by the phone ringing, and while Adele apologizes for the interruption, Paul notices that she is several months pregnant. He gets dismissive, he feels betrayed and refuses to engage any further. He assumes that she is in a happy relationship, growing a family. But we know different: she’s alone, facing the challenge of raising a child on her own, and drawn to Paul’s fantasy of sharing their experiences as equal partners. His behavior is so childish, I can only imagine that she feels disappointed. She has been trying to encourage him to break through the paralysis, whether in his therapy or in his private life. He wants her to know what specifically she wants him to act on, believing she is offering him to live out his dream, as if they have not discussed his inability to make decision for himself over the course of the past sessions. He still believes he is developing Parkinson’s, despite a second opinion that proves otherwise, and he has no answer to Adele’s question what would have been so different if the neurologist could have told him with absolute certainty that he will or will not get the disease. Isn’t that uncertainty what every person has to deal with? Somehow Paul keeps using the “wait-and-see” attitude as an excuse not to do anything. Adele repeats that his inability or refusal to act in Sunil’s case may cause harm to Julia and her children, and wonders if this is his subconscious way of sabotaging his career. That evening Paul does call Julia, apparently to discuss Sunil’s violent fantasies with her.

Overall, Paul has hardly gotten anywhere with his patients, certainly not with Sunil, Jesse is still very volatile, perhaps only Frances is ready to face her situation. Adele pointed out that she feels Paul may be identifying too much with Sunil, a foreigner forced to migrate to America, alienated by his new environment, and fascinated by the attraction of an impossible relationship. We could add that Paul also recognizes himself in Frances, her fear of dying, her struggle to get diagnosed for breast cancer, her trauma of losing her mother, her inability to communicate with her daughter, her sense of loneliness. Even in Jesse Paul can see part of himself, the feeling of rejection and abandonment, the inability to break through paralyzing thoughts that leaves him incapacitated to establish meaningful relationship and recognize the people who love him. There’s just one more session for each of them left. I am curious how things are going to wrap up in the next four episodes.

In Treatment 3x23

After the panic attack that set off their last session, Jesse has calmed down. No longer the hyperactive foulmouthed kid, but depressed, resentful and self-pitying. Jesse is deaf and blind to the Paul’s counsel. So it’s small wonder that he starts the session with questions about the whole point of therapy. Mixing metaphors, Paul explains that many people live in a fog, and he helps to unlock their inner selves. He has been trying to make Jesse see that he is unconsciously obstructing developing meaningful relationships with his adoptive parents, his birth parents, his friends and lovers, because he drives them away with his behavior. Yet, all Jesse can wonder is why nobody wants him, why everyone rejects him. He’s oblivious to the fact the he himself rejects them, pushes them away, drives them to anger, and only remembers their anger, the feeling of abandonment, or worse the kicks and punches. His depression is severe enough that it worries Paul hearing that Jesse would like to ride up a glass elevator on his own to the top of the atrium at the Time Square Marriott and disappear. Paul urges him, not as his therapist, but as someone who cares about him, to go home and be with the people who love him, his adoptive parents Marisa and Roberto. Instead, Jesse says he was invited for an interview at the Rhode Island School of Design. Again he is setting himself up for disappointment and rejection, for the school offers no financial aid, and there is no way he or his adoptive parents can afford tuition. Then Jesse asks Paul if he would like to join him for some ice cream, and Paul suggests they call Roberto and Marisa to pick him up. Jesse just asks if he can stay a little longer, to which Paul agrees.

In Treatment 3x22

Descriptive adjectives keep coming to the Cricket’s mind when seeing Frances’ behavior in therapy: passive-aggressive, manipulative, evasive, needy, begging for attention, feeling judged, blaming others yet guilt-ridden, scared and angry, narcissistic and lonely, in a word, pathetic. Her sister Patricia is now literally on her deathbed and all she wants to talk about is being hungry and looking tired. I say “looking tired,” because she is more concerned about her appearance than she is about herself. She walked out of the theater just before curtain call on opening night to be with her sister. She was there to help Patricia, bathed her, put her to bed, gossiped with her, read her a bit from Jane Eyre. Trish showed her appreciation, perhaps for the first time in her life, saying she loves Frances. Then they had to go to the hospital, as Trish’ condition worsened. Frances felt pushed aside by the nurses, felt judged by her daughter Izzy (who called her a narcissist after her mother told her she tested negative for the BCRA1 test), and suddenly decided to quit the theater to care for her sister full-time. It has been difficult for Paul to connect with Frances, to break through her protective shell, and though they share a moving moment when she talks about her sister, he cannot help being skeptical about her motives. Has she decided to move in with Patricia to prove (Izzy, Paul, herself) she is not a narcissist? Frances keeps returning to Izzy’s scathing remark and asks if it is possible for a narcissist to change. Just at that moment Izzy knocks on the door because Trish’ condition has worsened still. Maybe an interesting side note to observe how Paul himself might be considered a narcissist like Frances, and like her was entrapped by his mother as a child.

In Treatment 3x21

Yet another intense session with Sunil. When Paul opens the door, he finds Julia, and she has something to say: she is terminating Sunil’s therapy, it has not helped at all, the situation at home has only gotten worse. You can see on her face she is angry, she has a bandage on her arm and informs Paul that there was an incident with Sunil. They had an argument in front of the children, he pushed her and she fell onto a nail in the book case. Then she leaves and Sunil comes in. His side of the story is very different: he was singing a Bengali song to his grandchildren, Julia demanded that he stop, started yelling at him, the children started crying, and when he tried leaving the room, he pushed passed Julia, who scratched herself against the nail. Now Paul really has reason to worry that Sunil might harm someone. If that isn’t enough, Sunil asks him if he may keep an old cricket bat in safe keeping. Tension is rife, but Paul cannot determine whether Sunil is capable of violence. He keeps trying to find out, whether he could hurt Julia, whether there was more to Sunil’s violent dream, whether he ever harmed Manili, but Sunil keeps evading his questions. Paul and Sunil agree there will be one more session, since Julia offered a check for another hour, as Sunil refuses to become a charity case. How is that one extra session going to resolve anything? Will there be some shocking revelation that Paul has been on the wrong track all along? Stay tuned.

In Treatment 3x20

Paul drops off Max in Maryland, begging him not to worry about him. He briefly meets Steve, but declines to come in for coffee, as he has to get back to Brooklyn for his own session with Adele. He arrives late, with a great show of how bad he feels, taking aspirins in her office. He tells her he owes it to her that he finally spoke with Max, which made him realize that his son only came to live with him out of concern. Paul again makes a great show of this achievement, but it was only after the pancake incident (and the confrontation with Jesse) that he came to discuss his situation with Max. When Adele points out his demonstrative behavior, Paul angrily turns the conversation to his revelation in the last session. He may have dismissed it then, but he still needs to hear her response to his admission of his feelings for her. He genuinely feels they could make each other happy. It requires titanic tact and patience for Adele not to burst out – either in anger or laughter. Allowing his reverie to continue, Paul imagines they could discuss patients over wine, just as he now would like to hear her thoughts about Sunil. Adele indicates, that since he arrived late, their time is almost up, but Paul persists – explaining that he knows he is her last patient of the week – because he stayed in front of her building for an hour last time – and forcing her to extend their session (as if his situation is as critical as Jesse’s). When she hears about his stalk-like behavior, she has had it. He has asked her to be many things for him – his supervisor, his colleague, his life partner – anything, but his therapist. She bluntly confronts him with his paralysis to act in his life, with his son (waiting until a crisis occurs to talk to him), his patients (refraining from contacting authorities, even though he worries Sunil might harm someone), his girlfriend (not making up his mind whether to break up with Wendy or not), his health (persisting to believe he has Parkinson’s despite medical evidence to the contrary). Still, she offers to schedule two sessions a week to help him make progress – which he flatly refuses. What a wonderful show!

In Treatment 3x19

While Paul is making a concerted effort to bond with Max, suddenly Jesse is at the door demanding an emergency session. He went to see his birth parents and claims they threw him out. He knows he screwed up again, but cannot even admit that to himself. Paul realizes Jesse needs help and reluctantly lets him into his office. Jesse starts telling his story. He felt that Paul encouraged him to contact his birth parents after their previous session – thus laying blame on Paul. They were happy to see him, and so Jesse took the train to Westchester. He even came several hours early, so as not to arrive late as per his usual wont. Jesse noticed children playing in the front lawn, drawing chalk on the pavement, and one of them was in a wheelchair. He wandered around, trying to find a diner, smoking up to kill time and calm his nerves. When he returned, the children were gone – and all the evidence they had ever been there (including the chalk). Jesse seems not to remember much from the conversation, because he was stoned, but he is still upset that Kevin and Karen erased all evidence of their children.

He did find a bar in the bathroom for disabled people, so he is certain that the kid in the wheelchair is their son, and he is convinced his birth parents contacted him because they need his blood, an organ, bone marrow, or the like, for their sickly son. Paul confirms that it is strange that they removed the evidence of their children, but when he asks about the conversation and why they asked him to leave, Jesse tries to avoid talking about it. Eventually he comes clean that he suggested making some kind of deal with them, so that he could attend the summer arts program he has been dreaming about. When Paul explains that he believes Jesse deliberately sabotaged the meeting, just as he did with other relationships in his life, Jesse storms out. Paul follows him to the stoop and tries comforting him. There is nothing wrong with him, he says, nor is he undeserving of love and affection. His birth parents were his age when they gave him up for adoption. They never had a change to get to know him, but simply were too young to raise him. Then the smoke alarm goes off in Paul’s kitchen, because Max tried making pan cakes on his own, but burned them. Paul hugs Max and tells him it is okay. But Jesse leaves, no doubt feeling abandoned.

In Treatment 3x18

In her previous session, before she was leaving, Frances mentioned she had received the breast cancer test results, but had not looked at them yet – and walked off. Now she sits in the room letting minutes pass by in awkward silence without saying a word, waiting for Paul to ask her about the test results. She used her supposed difficulty memorizing her lines to get in the door, while really what she was worried about was that she would test positive and would die the way her mother did, and the way her sister now is dying, and that the way her daughter would die if she passed it on. So, when Paul finally asks her what she is thinking about, she starts talking about her daughter. Izzy had texted her that Patricia “looks like a skeleton.” Yet, instead of visiting her sister in the hospital, Frances went out with the cast and went home with one of the younger actors. He caressed her breasts and made her feel better about herself. She still hasn’t opened the letter with the results. She asks Paul to read it for her – which he does, but he hands the letter back to her. It’s the best possible news she could have hoped for, as she tested negative. Still she remains reluctant to face her dying sister, now coming up with the excuse that it would be inconsiderate to shove her good news into Tricia’s face. Adamantly, Paul insists she must see her sister before it’s too late and she will forever regret it. Frances dashes off in anger.

In Treatment 3x17

Sunil remains resistant to Paul’s suggestions – and my question remains whether this is because Paul is on the wrong track approaching Sunil despite his best intentions. The cultural divide has hardly narrowed over the course of the past four sessions. To make matters worse, Sunil’s mind is mostly elsewhere, as India is hit by a flood and his native village has been wiped away. He is still convinced that his daughter-in-law is having an affair and Paul will not be able to persuade him that her innocent flirtations do not prove she is betraying Sunil’s son Arun. For Sunil she is disgracing his family. He also had another disturbing dream in which he mutilated Arun’s unconscious body in order to save his grandchildren from an ominous female figure who seems to embody his revulsion and attraction to Julia, as well as his love and shame for Malini. He starts shouting angrily in Bengali at the implication he ever would have had harmed Manili, while Paul is more concerned that Sunil would ever harm Julia. Will Paul eventually be able to overcome this impasse of Sunil’s resistance to therapy?

In Treatment 3x16

Another fascinating session of this brilliant show. Paul is still stunned how intelligently Adele pointed out last week that Paul has a habit of making himself feel incompetent and in need of help. He talks about Max. They had a brief bonding moment, in which Paul explained Pythagoras’ theorem (a² + b² = c²). Max acted unfazed, but Paul was delighted. Later his daughter Rosie drove Max back from Baltimore, and they have a moment talking about the situation with stepdad Steve and about Rosie’s college applications. Paul is clearly worried not being a good father, and is stumped hearing that Max and Steve actually have a lot of quality time together. It is clear, though, that both Rosie and Max care much about their father. Then Paul shifts the subject to his girlfriend Wendy. It’s been awhile since we saw or heard from her. Last time we saw them together, Paul was worried she wouldn’t leave in time before Max woke up. He had actually asked her not to visit his house because of Max, feeling it had been rough on his children when his ex moved in with another man after their divorce. He asked Wendy whether she felt he has trouble being happy. “Not when you’re with me,” she replied and kissed him. It didn’t seem like a goodbye kiss. The next time we hear about her, we see Paul clean up his place, finding a bra next to the couch in his office. She stopped by for a quick tryst over lunchtime. In session Paul admits he was actually thinking about Adele while he was lying beside Wendy. Adele doesn’t blink for a second, but Paul quickly dismisses the thought.

Much of the session is about the various passions of Paul’s patients. He envies them, because he doesn’t feel he has any passions himself. Adele indicates that Paul lives up and is engaged when talking about his latest session with Sunil. She reminds him of the dream he shared a few weeks ago. He suddenly remembers the fence in the dream was at his boarding school in England, and how excited he was being there – and how he resented going to America, just as he was enjoying his time at the school. He tries blaming his father for moving to the U.S. and then leaving him alone with a sick mother. Adele asks about the boarding school and notices that Paul didn’t sign up for any of the extra-curricular activities that he describes so vividly. She also observes that Paul blames it on his parents that he didn’t try to fit in with his classmates in the U.S. She tells him it has become a pattern in Paul’s life, to blame his parents, to cut himself off, preferring to retreat into the safety of caring for his mother rather than engaging with the outside world and discovering his passions. She points to his fake diagnosis as a means to tie Max to him, his pre-assigned explanations to draw him back from exploring new interests. Paul is struck and impressed by her confidence. She instructs him to think about why he keeps doing that, breaking himself off, holding himself back, coming up with excuses, and dismissing his own feelings. He’s confused, wondering if she means she returns his feelings. But time is up and she does not allow him to finish his thoughts. “This will be an excellent place to start next week.”

In Treatment 3x15

This is another intense session with Jesse. Not because he is his usual antagonistic, foulmouthed, attention-deficit rebel, quite the contrary. He is much calmer, more hopeful and satisfied, even cheerful. What changed his mood is that his adoptive father Roberto got very angry when he heard that Jesse’s birth mother Karen had tried to contact him. It gave Jesse a sense of being loved seeing how much distress it has caused his parents fearing that he might disappear from their lives. He also felt closer to his father since Roberto helped him with his algebra and scored a “B” on his test. In fact, Jesse wants nothing to do anymore with his birth parents. He received a letter from his biological father Kevin, who is now married to Karen and regrets that they had to give him up for adoption when they were teenagers. For years Jesse has been dreaming about his birth parents, coming up with the wildest fantasies about them, but now that he can actually meet them, the reality of it is no longer as attractive. He needed to be loved, and has found that his parents did care for him for the past seventeen years. He expresses his emotions about his biological parents’ attempts to contact him in almost the same words as he describes Roberto’s anger. He wrote a very formal response to Kevin, declining their request and begging them not to get in touch with him again. Paul, however, understands Jesse’s biological parents’ desire to get to know their son, even if they don’t mean to take him away from Roberto and Marissa. He encourages Jesse to reconsider his response to Kevin. And when Jesse notices the remarkable similarities between his handwriting and that of Kevin, he is overwhelmed. He wonders if maybe he does have things in common with his birth parents. In short, a remarkable breakthrough happen in therapy, even though Paul had nothing much to do with it.

In Treatment 3x14

Frances is an entirely different animal from the previous session when she stormed out in anger because Paul refused to help her read her lines. She was terrified the preview would turn out a disaster. Now she is dejected yet resigned, although she’s had a great week on stage to laud applause. She has every reason to feel satisfied, yet she is quiet, reluctant to talk about anything, and still insecure about herself. She keeps talking about what other people think of her – her mother, her sister, her daughter, her ex-husband, even Paul – and how she feels she has disappointed them all in her life. She always felt inadequate around Russell and his intellectual friends. She apologized to Patricia for discouraging her from pursuing an acting career, but was hurt that her sister said she is glad she led a “real life.” Frances admits she stopped visiting her mother in her last days, feeling guilty Isabel came all the way to New York in her state to attend her premiere. She has been trying to live up to everyone’s expectations, putting up a performance her whole life, that she has no idea how to judge herself. The problem with her is that she is so passive-aggressively manipulative that it is impossible to know when she is telling the truth. Paul is aware that she contradicts herself every session, but makes no bones about it. Instead, he emphasizes that her feeling of inadequacy and disappointment comes from within, and that she needs to consider her own self-worth. Frances didn’t speak about her breast cancer test, but at the end of the session we learn she got the results, but hasn’t opened them yet.

In Treatment 3x13

Paul Westen’s Bengali patient Sunil is convinced his daughter-in-law Julia is having an affair, the thought of which repulses him as much as it enthralls him. He finds her open flirtatiousness at once shamefully immoral and irresistibly enchanting. His absolute proof that Julia is sleeping with one of the authors her firm represents is that he found birth-control pills in her study, when he felt compelled to look for the manuscript of this genius author, who he ridicules. His son Arun would very much like to have another child with Julia, so why would she be taking contraceptives? Sunil speaks about a disturbing dream and about watching Arun and Julia in their sleep, and then returns to the girl, Malini, he loved when he was in college. It is clear he’s buried the pain of losing her deep down his heart, and it’s similar to the animal he tried burying in his dream. And just as the animal fell off a high cliff, Sunil tells Paul that Malini, the love of his life, jumped off a bridge after breaking up with him. It’s a deeply emotional moment – even Paul is pained by the tragic story. The universal theme of love and heartache also bridges the cultural divide that has prevented Paul from making much progress with Sunil. However, Sunil remains unwilling to accept that he recognizes in his son’s marriage the love and passion he felt for Malini, or that the anger he feels towards Julia is not so much because her affair might jeopardize her marriage with Arun, but that he wishes to save his son from the same undying hardship. In short, this was yet another wonderful and highly gratifying episode.

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!

In Treatment 3x11

When Paul opens his door to the hallway, Jesse is already waiting, wearing sunglasses. When he takes them off, he has a big black eye. “She came,” he says, “just like you wanted,” referring to his adoptive mother Marisa – of course Paul never asked for Marisa to join them. Paul asks Jesse about the black eye and Marisa explains he got attacked in the bathroom at the Whitney Museum. Jesse admits it was Nate, his ex-fling who he called a stalker last week. He got suspended from school according to Jesse because he got into a fight, but Marisa worries it’s rather because he’s gay. Jesse is the one who got beaten up, not the other way around. Jesse is angry, mean-spirited, verbally abusive to the point that Paul has to shut him up that he cannot talk to his mother in therapy like that. Marisa wonders why she is there and Jesse springs on her that his birth mother wants him back. She is so upset at the thought of losing Jesse that she breaks down and apologizes herself. Jesse just feels abandoned and is convinced his adoptive parents hate him. Paul asks him if this is the normal dynamic between Jesse and his mother. He doesn’t seem to understand the question.

Paul then changes the conversation to the photos Jesse mentioned last week which upset Marisa so much. And that is where we finally come to a real breakthrough for the first time. Jesse calms down and truly opens up. He explains that in sixth grade they had to do a family tree project, which he did by means of the camera his father Roberto gave him for his birthday. After he shot photos of his cousins and nephews, he started taking pictures of the life guard and his friend. He deliberately stepped on a rusty nail to draw their attention. He told them he was an orphan and Roberto had to look for him all day to find out where he was. The life guard’s friend turned out to be a pre-med student and took him to the hospital. When they had their show-and-tell at school, Marisa became upset that Jesse included photos of the life guard and his friend, but his teacher urged him to stick with photography because she saw the artistry in them. So, on that day on the beach, Jesse discovered his creative talent, plus he discovered that he was gay, he invented his first fake identity, and found a momentary but meaningful relationship with the life guard’s friend. Afterwards, Jesse felt that his father started to distance himself from Jesse – and his mother stopped going to church.

Paul tries to encourage Jesse to see things from his parents’ perspective. It may not be that they cannot accept his homosexuality or that they don’t love him, as Jesse claims. His mother may have stopped going to church precisely because she doesn’t want to support an institution that excludes her son, and his father may have found it difficult to relate to Jesse’s creativity. Paul opens up about his relationship with his son, who likes to draw, but Paul cannot fully understand what drives Max to produce such dark sketches. Although Jesse cannot yet wrap his head around Paul’s suggestions, and remains convinced his parents hate him, he stays calm and listens. A seed has been planted. Then Paul confronts Jesse about the lies getting Marisa to join him in session. Paul believes Jesse rather took her with him so that Paul could tell her about Karen, Jesse’s birth mother, and that Jesse is afraid that she, too, may eventually abandon him. Jesse gets defensive again. Paul inquires if Jesse has been thinking about calling Karen. He ups and leaves with an angry, “That’s all I think about!” Marisa is still waiting for him in the hallway – despite Jesse’s conviction she rushed to church begging the priest to take her back after all those years. What a revelation this show!

In Treatment 3x10

When I think about Frances in this session, mostly descriptive adjectives come to mind. She is anxious, defensive, guilt-ridden, passive aggressive, deceitful, insecure, worried what people think about her, overly sensitive, concerned about her looks, apprehensive about getting old, unwilling to lay any blame on her mother (so there clearly are issues there), upset about being compared to her sister Patricia, jealous of her, convinced Patricia is punishing her – for becoming a famous actress and discouraging her from pursuing an acting career herself (telling her she was not very good at it, though she thought she was great and it came so much easier for Trish than for herself). She walks out moping like a child that she will be embarrassed in front of twelve hundred people at the preview performance and that she has no one to count on to help her with her lines, not even Paul. I am curious if the performance is really going to be as disastrous as Frances has feared, or if it will turn out a success – and in that case if it will soothe her into talking about the root of her insecurities. She chose a profession in which she is constantly being appraised, under critical scrutiny, subject of the public’s gaze staring at her, judging her. She never seems to have found a way to cope with that aspect of her career, and she is translating those anxieties into her private life. Will Paul be able to help her with that? Will she open up about her mother and accept that she and her sister were cast into roles unwittingly? Will she be able to make amends with Trish and her daughter Izzy?

In Treatment 3x09

Sunil begins his session preparing tea, and ridiculing the reality show Survivors, before he tells Paul he has been trying to make an attempt at expressing his frustrations. He says it’s like learning how to throw a curveball in cricket with your other hand. Then he speaks with the same excited repulsion about his daughter-in-law’s exercise regimen. Paul is trying to get Sunil to admit that he is drawn to her. He deflects the question a few times by talking about his son’s attraction to Julia instead. Sunil continues talking about honor and shame, about family and dignity. His Brahmin upbringing couldn’t be more different than Western instant-gratification consumerism. When Paul again explains he gets the feeling Sunil is fascinated and intrigued by Julia, Sunil laughs hysterically, hands him the check and leaves. What a treat these two together in one room! They are both aware of their cultural differences, but can’t break through each other’s barriers. Intellectually Paul can sympathize with Sunil’s devotion to dignity, but won’t be able to convince him of Western analytical notions about conflicting emotions, being repelled yet attracted by the same thing or person. Sunil for his part understands that Western culture is driven by desires for fulfillment, but finds this pursuit of happiness a sign of weakness, as immoral has having an affair. I wonder if they will ever find common ground, entrenched as they are in each their own worldview.

In Treatment 3x08

Last time Adele told Paul her door is always open for him – in contrast to his last therapist and mentor Gina. He’s read Gina’s novel, and left her several voice messages, wanting to talk to her about some of the characters in his book. But why would he return to Adele, if he only went to her for a refill of his Ambien? He tells her his twelve-year old son Max has decided to move in with him and came from Baltimore on the train by himself. It’s not so much the pressure of his parental responsibilities that brought him back to Adele. His real concern is how to discuss with Max he has Parkinson’s. He says that as a matter of fact. We know from bits in earlier episodes that Paul did go to a neurologist, and while waiting for the results, has been frantically reading online about the disease’s inheritability risks. When Adele asks him about the neurologist, he interrupts her to admit that she was right he doesn’t really have someone to talk to. He speaks about his relationships with Max and his daughter Rosie, but when Adele asks Paul if he is equally worried about talking to Rosie about his disease, he interrupts her again. Now he thanks her for being right about Gina. Reading her novel makes him realize he disagrees with her methods. He finds her indiscrete and utterly selfish. He starts criticizing Gina, claiming she based her main character on her. But when Adele wants to discuss what bothers him about the book, he breaks her off yet again.

After an awkward silence, she is finally able to get him to talk about the neurologist. He goes on another tantrum about his low-tech encounter at Cornell’s state-of-the-art new hospital wing, only to be told he does not exhibit enough positive symptoms to diagnose the disease. Yet he doesn’t seem relieved. In fact, he has already scheduled another appointment for a second opinion. He still sleeps poorly and continues to have the same dream – running outside a tall fence on a field, but once he approaches the gates his legs get stuck in quicksand, and when he turns around he see his father lurching towards him. Adele pushes Paul to contemplate why he persists in believing he has Parkinson’s even after a qualified neurologist informed his he probably does not have the disease. She wonders if he might find it comforting to imagine there will be people caring for him as he gets older. And she asks him when was the last time he ever felt the same excitement as in his dream when he approached the gates. He becomes angry, feeling misunderstood, and dismisses her expertise again, belittling her as merely a recent graduate without much life experience. He puts her to the test, asking if she understood his reference to Bartleby earlier in the session. She stares blankly at him, hiding her indignation, and responds, “The Scrivener.” She read the Melville novel. She’s past the test. In short, this was a superb episode, masterfully written, and wonderfully acted. A real intellectual treat.

In Treatment 3x07

Messed up kid Jesse (that incredible Dane DeHaan) continues evading Paul’s questions at sixty miles an hour, trying to provoke him with his crude jokes, prodding him for information about his family, testing his patience by threatening to throw things through the window. Paul wants Jesse to talk about his birth mother, his relationship with his adoptive mother Marisa, or why he is avoiding talking to Nate, a class mate he had a secretive fling with, but now considers an obsessed stalker merely because he tried calling Jesse on their landline. It must be difficult breaking through the layers of deceit Jesse has wrapped around himself in an attempt to protect himself from hurt. He clearly yearns for intimacy and emotional connection, but makes that well nigh impossible with the lies and abrasiveness. He thought Paul had taken him on pro bono and breaks down when he learns from Paul that Marisa is paying for his therapy. He knows she cannot afford it – just as he knew she couldn’t afford paying for his summer arts program to which he applied as an excuse for contacting his birth mother in Westchester without consulting his adoptive parents. When Paul doubts that she will just fork up the money if he calls her out of the blue, Jesse gets so angry he wants to leave. At the end of the session, Jesse tells Paul to warn his son for the world of pain ahead of him.

In Treatment 3x06

Frances is still having trouble remembering her lines during rehearsal, even though she can quote them verbatim off stage. She’s afraid to come off as frivolous or ridiculous or pathetic complaining about forgetting her lines, about her stage director, about getting older, about not having had sex for two years, and what not. She is comparing herself to her sister who is taking her breast cancer in such great strides. Her teenage daughter seems to prefer her father and aunt over her, and has a boyfriend with whom she may start having sex. She felt her husband would lose interest in her the moment she got pregnant. It is fair to say that Frances is very insecure about herself and needs constant praise for what she does to maintain a sense of purpose. She has faced the loss of her husband (after he had an affair) and of her daughter, now her sister is dying, and the high risk that she may test positive for the breast cancer gene test may mean she might lose her breasts. Paul had called her sister Patricia to show his concern and realized Frances hadn’t been truthful when she told him she had been talking to her sister about seeing Paul. She confesses and promises to talk with Patricia before the next session.

In Treatment 3x05

Sunil returns for his second session. He dislikes being referred to as a patient; some kids spoiled soda over his vest; his son and daughter-in-law forced him to take a shower; and recently he’s been having this ache. Sunil is grumpy, but he has a sweet sense of humor. When Paul asks him about the ache, he jokes it must be the same ache his son hopes Paul can release him of. Soon enough Sunil is questioning the method of therapy in which only one side engages in the conversation. He feels he cannot be expected to share intimate details of his life, if the other party of the conversation barely says a word. Paul criticizes Sunil for putting his own complaints and grievances into other people’s mouth, for projecting his own frustrations onto others. Sunil jokes that now he regrets asking Paul to speak more, and he voices his frustration over the poor quality of tea in New York. They continue their cat and mouse game, Paul keeps asking probing questions and Sunil keeps dodging them. When their time is up, Sunil seems insulted as if Paul is throwing him out. From our Western perspective it is clear that Sunil has been bottling up resentments for years, but he is resigned there is nothing that can be changed about his life. It poses a great challenge for Paul to break through such barriers. For both parties this must not have felt as a productive session. Still, Sunil somewhere somehow seems to appreciate his sessions. So there’s hope that he can learn to become more assertive.