Shrinking on Apple TV was a bit of a cult hit recently, but wow, the ethical violations are sooo many that every single character would have restrictions placed on their practice in moments if they were in the real world. So lets look at just some of the ethical violations of Shrinking.
Please don’t take your clients home
What are they thinking? The issue here is that there is a significant power differential between Therapist and Patient. Can people make good decisions when there is a power imbalance? Sure. But the reason for ethical guidelines is that in a lot of these matters things can very easily go sideways and end up with consequences that are directly related to a power imbalance, like your patient and daughter falling in love..
Grief and alcoholism are reasons to take a break
Throughout the initial episodes of the season, we see Jason Segal’s character in severe grief and using alcohol as a crutch. He is also having relationship issues with his daughter. Therapists are humans too, and this means that any major event in our lives can have an impact on our judgement and the way that we work. Segal being at work with limited support networks is a cause for concern. His grief, his boundary violations, poor judgement are all signs to say ‘Hey Jimmy, maybe get some actual therapy yourself’Direct advice and judgement of others is a no-no
Sometimes people want to be ‘Gregory Housed’ and have a truth telling professional tell them whats what and how to live their life. But this rarely does any good in real life. What it tends to do is reinforce the idea that all people are judgemental, rather than reinforce the ideas of how things need to change and why things might be how they are now.
Humans are complex and this kind of truth telling is often more about the therapist feeling uncomfortable and trying to wrestle control of a session or of their own feelings. For example, the ‘leave the abusive partner’ trope is an easy one to say that is the right choice, but that client knows they need to leave, but they haven’t got the coping skills to be able to do that and often are left in a worse situation (as evidenced by the show).
In session the ‘truth telling bomb’ may seem effective, but often when back in their real life often people realise that they have already heard these ‘truths’ either from themselves or from others around them. One of my favourite pieces that highlights the absurdity of this approach is the Bob Newhart sketch.Mentors need boundaries too
What the hell, Paul (Harrison Ford)? Another therapist who is unable to manage his personal life and dating his doctor (yep). Unable to find a way to make good with his family, Paul puts his skills to use by counselling Jimmy’s daughter, Alice. Unfortunately Paul then just relays all of the information in his (public) sessions with Alice back to Jimmy, breaching numerous ethical and legal codes all at once.
But why does it even matter, it’s a sitcom right? My problem is that therapy is still so misundertood by the general public so the place they are likely to get information from is the media that they watch. Unfortunately, Shrinking tells a story of people who are willing to do whatever it takes to relieve their own personal distress rather than facilitate the change in those who have entrusted them.
If you’re interested, Season 2 of Shrinking is out soon on AppleTV.