And end abruptly.
“Omigod, doc, THAT’S why I’ve been stabbing- -”
“Annd, our fifty-five minutes are up. We’ll pick this back up next Thursday at 2.”
Which brings up another one: Finding the root trauma fixes the problem. “So my Dad was abusive, that’s why I’m messed up! Good to know, now I’m all better!”
The one I remember (so it might be way off) was an anorexia movie of the week thing. After nearly dying of starvation, the anorexic girl finally has a break through when she understands that the reason she doesn’t eat is because she doesn’t want to go to the bathroom, because when she was little she thought you could get pregnant from sitting on a toilet seat, and she’s afraid of getting pregnant. All better now; let’s get lunch at an Indian buffet!
Another candidate for the worst is Elaine’s on Seinfeld. The man was a Svengali!
Did you just say “Svenjolly”?
Yeah, who on earth has a therapist like that? And where on earth do therapists in TV shows get such huge offiices?
A friend had a therapist tell her that she was suffering from the trauma of separating from her mother.
When she was an embryo detaching from the uterine wall.
How that therapist got past the board is a question that doesn’t have a good answer.
A group of co-workers who don’t appear to know anyone else. They routinely hang out at work when they’re off the clock, and they seemingly only ever do things outside of work with each other.
In 25 years of full-time employment, I’ve hung out with people from work outside of work maybe twice, and at least one of those occurrences was of the “ran into them at the store” variety.
DemonTree:
Why do so many childbirth stories include the medical staff ignoring what the mother says and her previous experiences, and insisting they know better?
Wife was a licenced X-Ray Tech working as a janitor at the nation’s largest chiropractic college when a patient began showing signs of a stroke.
Said patient was shading blue so mine goodwife told the Head of “Medicine,” squiring a flock of future moms and dads, that she was in charge until the paramedics arrive – somebody did dial 911, right? No? For fuck sake! – and he could explain to his tour group why the janitor knows more about saving lives than he does, despite his precious, little, black doctor bag.
I loved that woman but one needed to stay on her good side.
Evidently if you’re a doctor in Seattle, the only other people you can sleep with are other doctors in the same hospital where you work.
People who seem to live in huge apartments in the middle of major cities that they can somehow afford, despite having no money (and yes, Friends, I’m looking at you)
To be fair, Monica is living illegally in a rent-controlled apartment that was her grandmother’s. She’s paying probably 1/4 - 1/3 of the rent the landlord would get if he rented it to brand new tenants. Monica and Rachel have a view, huge bedrooms, a big kitchen, a tub in the bathroom, and a living room big enough for company.
Across the hall, Chandler and Joey live in a place half the size all around. The living room barely fits the two lounge chairs, the kitchen is too small for two people at once, the appear to have a shower but not a tub, and the bedrooms are tiny. More importantly, they have no balcony, and if they did, if would overlook the alley.
For all we know, the university is actually the tenant on the building, and grants acces
This is actually one of the few things they don’t handwave. It’s pretty common in big cities. The Big Bang Theory has the same set-up. Leonard and Sheldon live in a spacious apartment with a decent kitchen, and two fairly large bedrooms (albeit, Sheldon’s is larger than Leonard’s), the bathroom is huge, and in the living room, they have a view. They don’t have a balcony, but they do have a bay window, and probably a window seat. Sheldon says at least once that if he could afford the place himself, he wouldn’t bother with a roommate.
Across the hall, Penny has a tiny apartment, tiny kitchen area, tiny bedroom, and tiny bathroom. She has no view from her living room, but if she did, it would overlook the alley as well. She might have a view of the alley from her bedroom, but that’s not really the same thing as “A Room with a View.”
The trope that just occurred to me happens all the time in rom-coms. Two people will despise each other-- REALLY hate loathe, them, and the horse they rode in on. But still find them attractive, after something like seeing them with their glasses off.
Then, smite by the love bug, will think of some nickname that is a cross between a Shakespeare character, and someone from history, call their love this, and become creepy stalker dude, who does something so massively insane, she falls in love with him.
I was always so jealous of those people. Even when they leave work by themselves with no plans, all they have to do is pop into The Cool Neighborhood Bar and, within 30 seconds, HEY! Immediately two to four pals from work walk in (only the cool peeps, the annoying ones go to Applebee’s, I guess).
After one minute of therapy (seriously, they walk in saying “You had a hell of a day, but you canNOT let Jablonski get to you.” “Thanks, I guess I… needed to hear that.”), huge glasses of Scotch or generic bottles of beer are served without anyone ordering them, and camaraderie ensures.
In fact, I got so jealous, I started a Goin’ Out Night on Wednesdays. We met at a local brewpub and often rounded up five or six teachers who taught Wed. nights til 8, and went straight there.
On the other hand, some nights it was just me… but still, we became favorites and the bartender started “Teachers’ Night”, giving free drink coupons on Wednesdays.
Real life imitating art, man!
I know it’s unrealistic but I absolutely love this trope. Most of my romances start with the lovers trying to attack or kill each other. It’s a lot of fun to bring them from one extreme to another.
So while I roll my eyes I’ll think “Well, that’s okay, as long as the screenwriter’s having fun!”
Well, a lot of people love that trope. That’s why it exists. Though it’s not usually that extreme!
On second thought, how many action movies involve abducting some girl and the characters are at each other’s throats until they fall in love? Plenty.
Dr. Wilbur herself was one of the most unprofessional shrinks in the history of psychiatry.
To be fair, that’s a criticism that has also been made of Dr Wilbur in real life
Yeah, I read that. Loved it.
Thing is, when Dr. Wilbur was practicing, the lines weren’t as clearly drawn as they are now-- nor even as they were in the 1970s, and the movie with Sally Field and Joanne Woodward is set in 1970. It’s sort of ironic to call it “highly fictionalized,” since it turns out the “shocking, true story” it’s based on, was also “highly fictionalized.”
Kind of amazing when you think of things in the past that couldn’t happen now-- for example, how unprofessional would Annie Sullivan’s over-involvement in Helen Keller’s personal life be today?
These two posts made me chuckle because they reminded me of a rerun of Monk I watched just yesterday:
A murder takes place at a nudist beach, which reveals Monk to not only have his normal phobias about nude people, but he is actively hostile to them.
He talks with his therapist about this, saying when he was much younger, he was bullied and terrorized by a man while he was completely naked.
Therapist: well, that would certainly explain your hostility. Tell me more.
Monk: he grabbed me by my feet and swung me around upside-down while I was totally naked and crying. My mother was there but she did nothing to stop it.
Therapist: Um, Adrian, was the man wearing a mask?
Monk: Yes! How did you know?
Therapist: Adrian, I think you’re remembering your own birth. If it was anybody else I wouldn’t have believed it.
Monk: That would explain why my dad was in the doorway holding a balloon…
And then Monk was cured of his hatred / phobia of nakedness and (relatively) fine dealing with nude people after that!
That’s a leftover idea from psychoanalysis, that uncovering the source of a maladaptive behavior would put a stop to it, but even in Freudian psychoanalysis, it wasn’t quite that simple.
It was true that according to Freud, every maladaptive behavior was the result of trauma (or, “imagined” trauma 
-- Freud usually took the word of accused perpetrators that sexual molestation against women patients had not happened); still it was necessary to uncover the trauma, analyze how it had led to the maladaptive behavior and deconstruct it. Then, in the light of new information, it would be possible learn new behavior patterns-- they didn’t just magically happen.
It was all BS, but it was BS that at least sounded plausible, and didn’t involve magic transformations. And, of course, considering what people knew and believe about human behavior before Freud, it was important work. Still wrong, but better than blaming demonic possession, or the fact that the patient’s mother had been frightened during pregnancy. Or that the patient was cursed or hexed.
Another thing I’ve seen in movies (and, to a lesser degree, on TV) that doesn’t happen much IRL: a pelvic exam in a sitting position. I’ve always had mine flat on my back, although other women have told me that they have theirs while partially propped up because of arthritis, or sexual abuse issues leading to mistrust, and they panic less when seated.