Fictional Therapists For A Real-Life World

I collect them, and everyone should

Image by Romare Bearden

A quick reminder that you can listen to this essay, and my entire Monday Memo, on Womancake’s brand-new podcast, only for paid subscribers. In this week’s episode I talk about how midlife women can become more visible, and share big news about my first celebrity interview, and a great big addition to the Womancake staff:

On the morning the Trump administration took power in 2017, I awoke from a dream in which a kind female voice was telling me, in the manner of an arresting officer reading my Mirandas, “You have the right to a therapist. If you cannot afford a therapist, one will be appointed to you.” A prescription for therapy seemed like what everyone in the world needed, and probably still needs. But even if there were enough therapists to do the job, would everyone accept the offer?

In my case, it would depend on the therapist. When I was in my 20s I had the astounding good fortune to work with a wonderful woman who had a profound impact on my life for more than 10 years. The problem is that no other therapist since then has measured up to the high bar that she set. 

Ideally the therapist-patient connection is one of immense trust, maybe more so than any other relationship in our lives. It takes time to build that architecture. You have to start with basic rapport, add some humor, then layers of increasing vulnerability until eventually you can walk right into their office, plop yourself down, and commence with the weeping (hot tip: any therapist who doesn’t keep a box of Kleenex within easy reach isn’t worth your money!).

During times when I couldn’t find a good therapist, or couldn’t afford therapy, I bushwhacked through the wild wilderness of culture for fictional therapists to study and adore. There was Barbra, wasn’t there, in “The Prince of Tides”, expertly shepherding a young patient through a terrible childhood trauma (although she did sleep with her patient’s brother, which, IDK… ethics?). There was also the therapist in, “What Lies Beneath”, calm and kind in his muted office with his dish of spicy candy, gently guiding freaked-out housewife Michelle Pfeifffer toward the realization that her marriage wasn’t quite what it appeared to be. Lorraine Brocco steadfastly dug down into Tony Soprano’s psyche, despite being horrified by what she found there. Uzo Aduba’s deeply intelligent and flawed therapist on “In Treatment” reminded me that the best healers often need healing of their own.

One of my favorite fictional therapists came to me on an ordinary day at the Library, in the pages of a novel unlike anything I’d ever read before. The protagonist is a young Black woman from the South, an artist working through intense childhood memories of a family betrayal that continues to haunt her adulthood in New York City. The story is told through the voices of her lovers, friends, family, each of whom takes turns narrating the events of the plot from their perspective.

In between these chapters, the woman has an ongoing dialogue with her therapist that gives deep insight into her heart and mind. The quality of her therapist’s work is revealed in his questions, which are so simple and calm that you could almost miss how skillful he is, how he draws the woman out of her pain and into a series of revelations that she can finally process and make sense of. 

The book is, “Liliane” by Ntozake Shange, and it has remained in my top-ten list for decades. Its language is so powerful, so fluid and sensual, that you remain riveted from chapter to chapter. This is certainly true of any good book, but this particular story could have gone completely off the rails, with so many characters and time periods moving in and out of the central narrative position. The effect, rather than being disorienting or disconcerting, is deeply compelling, and beautifully dream-like in parts.

Shange was the author of novels and poetry, but is best known for her award-winning play, “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enough”. Much of her work contains a robust poetic sensibility that makes reading her words aloud feel like singing. “Liliane” is especially musical, and each character's voice has its own rhythm and spark that summons a vivid picture of the speaker, and the time and place that they inhabit. 

Some of the book’s themes are extremely disturbing, describing the terrifying effects of Southern racism on the lives of Black people who are struggling to make sense of the world around them. Liliane’s community is made up of educated, worldly people that have prospered through hard work, and a belief that they must rise above others and become leaders in their community. But she wants something more than the stolid, super-secure married life that her father, a prominent judge, urges her to pursue. She is a budding visual artist who dreams of exploring far beyond the bounds of her hometown and her family’s wealthy but still second-class community. When her mother suddenly leaves the family and is rendered persona non grata, it shocks Liliane into making big changes of her own. 

Through it all Liliane recounts her innermost thoughts, desires, feelings and fears to her kind therapist, and he remains solidly by her side every step of the way. He doesn’t condescend or cajole her. He takes her moods and visions seriously, recognizing her tremendous creative capabilities, and encourages her to trace her own path to healing. Sometimes she is suspicious of his lack of judgment toward her, fearing that she will discover a limit to his goodwill. But gradually she comes to trust him, and herself, enough to face her darkest fears. What she creates out of that chaos is a beautiful new sense of self, not without pain, but strong enough to weather whatever comes. 

There aren’t enough healers to treat all of us, all of our pain and fear and shock and hope. We’ll have to make do with whatever support we can find in ourselves and the good people in our lives. Fictional therapists can help us visualize how to talk to ourselves, and how to approach our own pain and process with radical self-acceptance. I keep collecting images of powerful healers, sharing them with friends when life feels dark. I also interview real-life healers in the pages of Womancake, so we can have access to resources that might otherwise be invisible or inaccessible. Somehow all these voices coming together, real and fictional, makes the idea of collective healing possible. Art is what we had before Xanax, and it will continue as long as we give it faith and breath.