Apple TV's Shrinking Has Real-Life Therapists Raising Their Eyebrows
That happens quite often when different jobs' portrayal is not that accurate in the shows. And frankly, we were afraid that Shrinking would also tank on this one.
Shrinking is the new Apple TV 's series that tells us about a troubled therapist Jimmy, who is dealing with severe grief.
After his wife's death, both his personal and work life became a mess for a year. But now he is trying hard to make everything work again.
So he comes back to work, to his two colleagues aka friends – young cheerful Gaby and grumpy but still very kind Paul.
As the series goes, we learn that their approaches towards therapy are quite different. After going through some real-life drama, Jimmy finally exploded on one of the sessions with his patients.
Grace is a young woman who lives with her extremely abusive husband and tries to make it work by all means. In the end, Jimmy broke down and told her to leave her husband or… he will stop being her therapist.
That was the first one of his many future attempts of breaching ethical barriers by telling his patients what he really thinks. But the biggest thing he did was inviting one of his patients to live with him and his daughter.
Sean's story is not easy, but still, co-living is not something your average therapist would offer as a healing method. And here's what actual therapists think of that.
"My wife and I are both psychologists and we love the show. Having said that, Jimmy's "breakthrough" technique of telling patients what he thinks they should do is a fun little release for us, but is so incredibly risky and constantly jumps over the line of ethics.
He creates a dual relationship with Sean that creates extremely risky circumstances. That alone would be enough to get Jimmy's license revoked. He has also created a situation in which Seans confidentiality has been broken to Jimmy's neighbors.
And also showing up at a patient's date? Not only crosses a boundary but also risks breaking confidentiality," Reddit user AccountOfDamocles said.
But what actually made true therapists happy was the writer's idea to recreate the atmosphere of a real life with its problems and struggles.
"I also really enjoy it because it shows therapists – who are easily viewed as very buttoned up professionals that are more robot than human and have all their shit together – as humans with our own issues. Doesn't mean we can't do our job with helping other people through their issues," Reddit user speaker4the-dead said.
It is now confirmed that the series is going to have season 2. So there is still time for Jimmy to learn new therapy tricks for his patients… or improve the ones he already practices.