A Shrink on Shrinking (the series, not the occupation)

The Apple TV comedy addresses deeper issues while being really funny

Happy Birthday, Mom.

First, a quick introduction.

As I run through this gate, I am holding tight to the saddle and I’ll try not to get knocked off. I have thought about starting a Substack newsletter for a while now and —true confession here — I have not yet figured out what form I want this to take or what messages I might want to convey. And while I have never ridden an actual horse (that’s right, ever— laugh if you must), this is not my first writing rodeo.

I write, it’s what I do, I hope it keeps me sane. I tried writing novels and that didn’t seem to go very far. In 2006, with two psychiatrist friends, I started a blog called Shrink Rap. We wrote for 12 years. The blog led to a podcast (69 episodes, but who’s counting?), two books and columns for Clinical Psychiatry News, Medscape, and currently, Psychiatric Times. In the past 18 months, I’ve had a fascination with Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy —learning it, practicing it, and writing about it and that has distracted me from writing. More about that later. So I haven’t been writing so much lately and I go back and forth on whether it matters. Now here I am, ready to stop thinking and just start writing. Thank you for reading.

I’ve been thinking about death a lot. I suppose I always do, and maybe everyone always does, because what else directs us in our paths forward but for the knowledge that the path has to end? With that thought, today is my mom’s birthday. She died unexpectedly in 2002. Thinking about both my mom and death is a good Segway into what I want to talk about today: the Apple TV series, Shrinking.

The premise is this: there is a group psychology practice (no psychiatrists, no meds). Paul, played by Harrison Ford, is everyone’s cranky mentor. He hates people, and he suffers no fools. Paul gets diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and immediately starts dating his neurologist. He dishes out the truth whether you want it or not, and he knows you love him. Gaby (Jessica Williams) is a sex-crazed single therapist with an outlandish wardrobe and a mouth to match. And Jimmy, poor Jimmy is a psychotherapist, played by Jason Segal, who is falling apart after his wife is killed in a car accident. He is left with a teenage daughter—Alice— and a host of demons. And a word on Alice — she’s the most wonderful of teenagers and everyone loves her. Paul takes her on as his patient in exchange for candy, Gaby is her good friend, and well, there’s not nothing not to love. There are friends and neighbors, but I’ll leave the side plots out. Oh, but for one, Jimmy takes on a violent patient, a vet who is struggling with episodes of rage , and brings him home to live in his pool house. Sean (Luke Tennie) becomes Alice’s teddy bear, everyone’s patient and project, and he’s pretty lovable.

If you’re a psychiatrist watching this show (as I am) you may be tempted to say, ugh another show about shrinks with no boundaries. Everyone is everyone’s patient, Jimmy and Gaby are sleeping together at one point, the shrinks are a mess, people will think that shrinks are all crazy themselves and yet another show depicting shrinks with no boundaries! Ah, loosen up, it’s all so silly — and to this show’s credit, no therapist has sex with a patient (just takes one home to live, but no sex).

There are great characters and great lines —mostly just silly funny, but here and there we get sad and heartfelt. Alice is the teenager who misses her mom, misses her dad, and struggles to be a normal kid despite being ‘the kid with the dead mom.” Jimmy is the shrink-dad who struggles with his guilt for not being a good dad to Alice (Lukita Maxwell), and Paul is Harrison Ford without a horse or a gun, struggling with the body that no longer works for him. And if it all isn’t enough, the drunk driver who killed the mom — played by the guy who was the inimitable Roy Kent in Ted Lasso — is forlorn and broken until he finds himself through a healing friendship with Alice.

The theme song, Frightening Fishes, is catchy and I like the opener with a hedge labyrinth shaped like a brain. It’s funny, it’s touching, it’s outrageous, it’s good.

I’d love your feedback. If there are things you want to read by a psychiatrist trying to find my way on Substack, I’m all ears! Thank you for reading.