In Treatment is an American HBO drama, produced and developed by Rodrigo García, about a psychologist, 50-something Dr. Paul Weston, and his weekly sessions with patients, as well as those with his own therapist at the end of the week. The program, which stars Gabriel Byrne as Paul, debuted on January 28, 2008, as a five-night-a-week series. After winning critical acclaim and numerous honors, including Emmy, Golden Globe and Writers Guild awards, In Treatment returned for a second season, premiering on April 5, 2009. The second season built on the success of the first, winning a 2009 Peabody Award.
Overview:
Each episode of In Treatment focuses on one patient, including Paul, who is seeing his clinical supervisor and psychotherapist, Gina, played by Dianne Wiest. The first season included 43 episodes, each airing a different night of the week, Monday through Friday. The first season covered nine weeks for most of the characters, except in the final week, which did not have Monday or Tuesday night installments.
Mai character:
Gabriel Byrne is Paul Weston, a charming, relentless psychologist, who is seeking his own peaceful existence, free of self-doubt and ambivalence. Paul is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he earned his undergraduate degree, Columbia University, where he earned masters degree and The New School, where he received his PhD (however, there's a scene in season one in which two diplomas from the University of Pennsylvania are displayed near the door to Paul's office). In the summer of 1988, he moved to Maryland, where he worked at the Washington-Baltimore Psychoanalytic Institute and later established his private practice in Baltimore. (The location of his practice is unclear; some references seem to place it in suburban DC, and a comment in a session with Jake (Jake & Amy) indicates the town is near the Appalachian Trail, which crosses Maryland just east of Hagerstown—more than an hour from both DC and Baltimore.)
Plot:
Laura and Paul's relationship grows more complex and difficult to control. After Laura professes her love for him, Paul reflects on his own feelings for her and eventually, in sessions with Gina, comes to the realization that he is in love with her. Midway through the season, Laura decides to end her therapy with Paul after he rejects her advances countless times. She returns, needing to talk to someone, after she learns her father is dying. They run into each other at Alex's funeral, and later, Gina gives Paul the go-ahead to go after Laura, but a panic attack prevents him from going through with it. Laura's personal issues discussed in therapy include the lack of a father figure after her mother died, a pressing need to break up with her boyfriend, and seducing a much older man when she was a teenager.
Alex, who at one point meets Laura and has a brief affair with her, finds it impossible to express his internal struggles. As Paul tries to get Alex to break through to his reasons for running himself to exhaustion and his real feelings about murdering Iraqi schoolchildren from his plane, Alex drifts into instability, eventually deciding to end his therapy, and returns to the military just as Paul is beginning to make progress with Alex's repressed insecurities. Alex is killed during a training exercise, and while his death is originally ruled an accident, Paul is plagued with guilt that Alex's death may have been a suicidal reaction caused by the traumas of therapeutic reflection. Then the story goes on...
