Here we are at week 3 and I remain ambivalent about this season. In fact it took me until today, several days after they aired, to watch this week’s cases. So this week I want to focus on what it is that makes me uneasy about the characters this season, especially about Brooke.

I am beginning to feel that what appears to me as maybe sloppy work with her patients can be attributed to the fact that Brooke is drinking and has been, we learn this week, since her father died. All therapists are human with human problems. Our personal lives can become messy and troubled. But we have an ethical obligation to deal with intrusions from our personal issues into our work. And Brooke is not meeting this obligation. Yes, she talks with Rita who is, in addition to being her friend, is her AA sponsor. In a way this is a dual relationship not unlike the one Paul had with Gina. Dual relationships are problematic because both roles ultimately get short-changed. And Brooke needs more than a friend and sponsor to deal with her problems. AA can be great for gaining and maintaining sobriety, but Brooke’s issues, just from what we know so far, run deeper than her alcohol use and to a degree certainly drive her desire to drink. We don’t hear this week about Brooke dodging Paul and her regular supervision but there is no reason to believe she changed her behavior.

In each of the sessions with the three patients we see, Brooke jumps away from strong expression of their feelings. Eladio spoke movingly and intensely about his care for his charge, that he loves him which Brooke in time connected to his own need for care and for good mothering. Eladio responded by wanting to end the session early and instead of gently encouraging him to talk about what he was feeling, she assented and then immediately called her psychiatrist friend to refer him for evaluation and possible medication. When she calls him to tell him, she also tells him she questions his bi-polar diagnosis, which makes me wonder why she didn’t explore this with him further before or even if making the referral. I suspect it was Eladio’s strong emotions which elicited what looks to me like a countertransference response from Brooke.

Then Colin began with wanting to please her, to make her like him. They sparred throughout the session. Brooke becomes a bit coy in manner with him at times. At the very end he asks her if she likes him and rather than stay with that, with his, for him, rather naked need, she pushed him away. If he stays for just the mandated 4 sessions, they have only one session left. He has said he just wanted to get that requirement met and done, yet he did not show signs of wanting to bolt most of the session and with some encouragement from Brooke might well begin to sink into the process.

Finally Laila whose grandmother pretty much tells Brooke that she is not doing her job to prepare Laila for college and intimates that there won’t be many more sessions. The work with Laila, as with Eladio, for most of the session is pretty good. But, as with Eladio, when strong emotion led Laila to defend against it by taking out her phone to text her girlfriend, Brooke exits the room. She doesn’t stay and challenge Laila or encourage her to talk about what she is feeling. She just gets up and leaves the room, ostensibly to get something to drink. Laila gets ready to leave, says goodbye to Brooke who says she will see her next week. And then Brooke takes out a bottle of vodka and pours some into her energy drink. Once again, strong emotion leads Brooke to flee.

Finally in the time with Rita, the dimensions of Brooke’s behavior become clearer. Rita is caught between wanting to soothe her friend and doing what she knows as her sponsor she should do given that Brooke has relapsed. In the end, she yields to the friend side, which is a shame because Brooke needs someone to hold her accountable. Underlying the drinking on this day is news she received that she would not be able to reconnect with her son who was placed for adoption right after birth. So Brooke is grieving the death of her father, the loss of the hoped for reunification with her son, among other things. She needs help and so far at least is not only not seeking it, she is actively rejecting it. 

I am anxious to see how much more of a train wreck Brooke will create in the remaining weeks and which of her patients will settle down into therapy and stay. 

What do you think?

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2 Comments

  1. I have to admit that I found all the performances this week to be more natural. Maybe the actors are now getting comfortable in their roles. But you are right, every session ended abruptly or awkwardly… even Laila sensed it and asked Brooke if she was supposed to say something to her before she left. Also, I was wondering if Brooke would have an obligation to report Laila planning to run away with a minor? I am not a therapist so I am not sure what is and isn’t reportable.

    • I don’t know what California law is on this situation. It gets into a very tricky area because, as we see a bit later, the plan is not mutual.


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