The Madison, Season One
If you haven’t yet watched The Madison but plan to, I can’t recommend its portrayal of a therapist, Dr. Phil Yorn (Will Arnett). If you have already watched The Madison, maybe you have questions. I’m here to try to answer them.
Creator Taylor Sheridan focused Season One on the impact of unexpected loss on a wealthy New York family. Needless to say, everyone’s grief process is emotionally fraught, and it’s particularly intense for Stacy (Michelle Pfeiffer), who has lost her beloved spouse (Kurt Russell).
Eventually Stacy reluctantly agrees to meet with the therapist recommended by her best friend. She immediately, however, approaches Dr. Yorn with much hostility, berating him with sharp personal attacks.
Although this type of harsh, misdirected anger can give any therapist pause, his response is appallingly wrongheaded and just the first of his voiced “I shouldn’t be doing this” actions: Yorn offers her a drink and pours a stiff one for each of them.
Not only that, he now plans to do this in tomorrow’s session as well—if it can be his last session of the day, he tells Stacy, because otherwise he may be too drunk to see the rest of his patients.
Then he lets her leave without a care in the world about whether she’s now impaired. What if she already had alcohol or drugs in her system? Did he even assess that? (No.)
And before she leaves, there’s the other “I shouldn’t be doing this” move: an intimate hug of solace that he initiates.
In session two he doesn’t even voice “I shouldn’t be doing this.” He just does the drinking thing, plus he readily agrees to attend the dreaded memorial service at Stacy’s house.
At that gathering Yorn, summoned to the distraught Stacy’s bedroom, enters and sidles right up to her to have the cozy chat she now desires.
He’s a good therapist, Stacy now declares.
No wonder there are videos fake-previewing Season Two of The Madison with still photos of Yorn and Stacy looking like a couple. (There is not yet an official trailer for Season Two.)
Ill-Advised Therapist Actions
In the various professional codes of ethics for therapists, some kinds of boundaries go unsaid. Don’t murder your clients, for example. Also, Don’t serve alcohol. Don’t seek non-sexual physical contact.
The Yorn actions lie in the murky categories of boundary crossing, boundary violations, and/or dual relationships ethics. Murky because what constitutes these is often difficult to establish and/or agree upon.
Why do therapists need to have certain boundaries? In a nutshell, in order to maintain safety for both client and therapist while enabling the client to receive relatively objective feedback and assistance.
In my estimation, then, the following are a few things that could have gone differently:
- Try harder to get to the roots of Stacy’s hostility. (Yorn, in addition, can even indicate that he’s not there to be her punching bag.)
- Instead of offering alcohol, assess (as a routine measure) the possibility of existing substance abuse issues.
- If she requests a hug at the end of the session, that’s one thing. But she was never going to do that.
- Before the next session Yorn can apologize for his (already admitted) missteps.
- Yorn can respectfully decline to attend the memorial; counsel her instead about how she might handle it.
Agree or disagree? I welcome your comments!
