Review: Next to Normal 4/4/09 matinee (small spoilers) — Page 3

Also Jordangirl, people are well-informed about prison and nannies and KNOW that information is false. People today have a very small knowledge about mental ilness.

---

Where the hell did I say it's easy? I never said that. BUT THEY ARE TAUGHT WAYS TO GET PROFESSIONAL DISTANCE. (I know a lot of people who work in the mental health field too. Wow! Go figure!) No one "finds it easy" but if it's affecting them so much that they can't separate from the job, they need to consider a new job. I know if I was seeing a therapist and knew that s/he was taking home every single thing I said, I'd find a new therapist quickly. Partly it's that ability to keep distance that makes someone a good therapist.

You can have EMPATHY without getting bogged down. The best example is if someone's in a mud hole and you want to help, you've got two choices...

Choice A ~ You find a root or something to hold onto before getting in the hole so you can help get yourself and the person you're helping out of it. THAT IS EMPATHY and what good therapists have.

Choice B ~ You jump right in with the person and don't keep hold of anything. Then how will either of you get out? THAT IS SYMPATHY and while it may be appropriate between friends (probably not if you really want to help someone) it is SO not appropriate in a therapeutic relationship.

---

Once again.

If I pull a random person off the street and enter them in a boxing competition, they're going to leave a wreck (if theyr'e even alive), but if I pull a professional boxer off the street and enter them in a boxing competition and he wins, he won't be AS wrecked as the random person... but he'll still be aching when he gets home. His professional training does not work like magic.

The impression that this number gives is that patients pour their heart out to the doctor while the doctor sits back and puts his feet on a coffee table.

---

Exactly. The IMPRESSION it gives is Diana's reality.

RE: the sex, go back and read the thread and you'll figure that one out.

As to the other... And most people can clearly see that that song is DIANA'S reality and that her reality is altered.

---

No story is THE story of anything. Even if it is a factual event such as a war, everyone's experiences with it will be different in some way. That is true of ANY situation, and the audience would have to be idiots to think that for any situation, someone's reality is the same as everyone else's.

Are you kidding me? Seriously? I have heard a LOT of people talking about it after the shows ~ and talked with a lot of them about it ~ and I have yet to hear people (except the argument starters on this board) saying that they think this is the only way. On the contrary. What I hear more often than not is people talking about their own experiences or those of close friends or family members and how aspects mirror their or their loved one's experiences in struggling to find the right person, the right solution. I have YET to hear anyone walking out saying "I'm throwing my pills out" or "I'm quitting therapy".

I think people are by and large more intelligent than you're giving them credit for.

---

Updated On: 4/5/09 at 10:15 PM

Just curious, has anyone you've talked to who has seen the show decided to quit therapy/taking their pills?

I went into the show fully prepared to see an anti-medication/therapy slant, since I had read about people having issues with the show in that regard. I came out feeling the show was very specifically saying that, in the case of Diana, her best course of action was perhaps different what she had been given. Not that all medications and therapy is completely useless.

---

Haha that was intended for allthatjazz since he seems so sure that this show influences people to quit therapy.

Oh, gotcha jane! :)

---

"I don't think the relationship between a professinal therapist and a mentally ill patient is subject matter for a humorous song."
________________________________________________________________________________

As a psychiatric therapist for the seriously (talking locked ward) mentally ill, I can tell you that humor is the savior for those of us working in that world.

There is a reason why it's called "comic relief."

this is such a heated debate... i'm gonna go with most of these people and say its not offensive whatsoever, its humorous, and is doesn't give an unfair representation of therapists and such. it doesnt say everyones experiences are like diana's or that they're all corrupt and doesnt imply it. and the show is brilliant.