Thread 215406759

is she a good therapist?

>>215406759 (OP)
My ideal therapist doesn't need a therapist. Though I don't have a lot of respect for the profession in the first place.

Objectively, no.
1) She got strung along like a retard by a barely literate sociopath
2) Despite committing to this at cost of personal safety, she abandons Tony for entirely superficial reasons
She's fucking terrible, every other therapist in the show except for the one Meadow sees is better than Melfi.

>>215406796
she sounds a little slow. maybe her clinic played a prank on tony and foisted the diveristy hired mentally handicapped therapist on him

>>215406759 (OP)
No, she honestly wasn't. In the beginning she was, but then she fell under Tony's spell like a lot of women do when Tony isn't even trying.

It might not have been romantic for her, but she definitely loved the glamor and the excitement of having him as a client. They never showed it, but this is 100% the type of woman that would do her hair and makeup in the bathroom and unbutton the top button on her blouse before an appointment with Tony, then proceed to tell him how naughty he is for being attracted to her. She was just as much of a head case as Tony was.

in the first season to an extent
but afterwards it was painfully obvious tony wasn't making any meaningful progress, was just using her to vent and for advice and she went along with it because of the thrill of the experience and her repressed attraction to the big man

>>215406759 (OP)
Hell no. Just dumps pills on the guy.

>did nothing but uncover childhood trauma but give no effective ways to deal with it
>was more interested in using him for her own entertainment just like Cusamano
>tried to be like Tony in her personal life and it destroyed her personal life, makes no attempts to use this to reflect on how she can help Tony
About to start my sixth rewatch. The women are the worst part of this show by far. Melfi is probably the worst because at least Carm at different points in the show genuinely does care about Tony and wants him to get right with God. Even Janice actually cares about him, she's just a total nutcase so there's almost just as much bad coming from her. Melfi has absolutely zero excuse, though.

Didn't she blab to other people about who her client was? beyond incompetent. Chase kept her around way past her usefulness as a storytelling device.

>>215407079
Adriana is the best woman of the main cast.

>>215406759 (OP)
Genuinely what happened to Melfi after the ending?

>>215407041

Just like how they operate irl.

>>215406796
>strung along
No, she was aware she was useful and actually relished the power while keeping up personal barriers (Rosso). She explains this to Elliot when she whines about all her other patients, they're insignificant with their dull little lives but Tony makes her important.
You are likely right that she's a bad therapist though

>>215406759 (OP)
It literally took her like 7 years and other therapists directly intervening for her to realize her fucking mob boss client was a sociopath, she's probably the worst psychiatrist in popular media.

>>215407087
Nah has to be Artie's wife.

>>215407115
>No
she sincerely believed she could help Tony and she could not
Tony baited her with the occasional realization that, while sometimes significant, still never mattered or effected the way he behaved
She was strung along until too many people giggled at her during a pretentious, gay dinner party and THAT is when the levee broke, not any actual realization of hers
Melfi had to be given a college essay or whatever about sociopathic manipulation to understand
She's a fucking shrink, in case you forgot, and she needed to be first shamed and convinced to understand what the average joe already knows when they think of a "sociopath"

>>215407080
>Didn't she blab to other people about who her client was? beyond incompetent

That is what they all do. You are beyond naive if you think female therapist don't immediately blab everything to their husbands and their circle of besties over a glass or thirty of wine.

>>215407179
I dated a therapist for a year and I think that spouses and significant others of therapists should be entitled to a support group where we can all go and talk about how mentally unwell our partners are and share tips for dealing with the actual crazy person we have in our home.

>>215407169
>sincere
That is more of a narrative she told herself
There are sessions where she very clearly acts as consiglieri with a smile, there's no ambiguity there, she knows what she's doing.
Her pretending after that she just wanted to help is a self preservation method for her ego. She's pathetic.

>>215407225
>Her pretending after that she just wanted to help is a self preservation method for her ego. She's pathetic.
She's worse than that. For awhile, she's the most evil character on the show.

>>215407116
And how does that make you feel?

>>215407246
It doesn't make me feel, it makes me facts.

>Therapist
>The Rapist
>Gets raped

Bravo Chase

>>215406759 (OP)
I enjoyed her quite a lot, yes

I need hairy hag pussy so much it's unreal bros

>>215406759 (OP)
The obvious thing to me is how she became aware very early on that he was a murderous criminal, but didn’t confront him or drop him for years, and enabled him because she wanted some thrill in her boring job

>>215406759 (OP)
she was getting drunk at work in season 2 or 3 which is a plot I wish they did more with.

>>215408185
was she really worth the effort to rape?
She wasnt even that hot there where plenty of other atractive woman on the show

>>215410641
>tfw you go for hamburger instead of prime rib

>>215406759 (OP)
I was disapointed with her at the end, she didnt realize by herself that Tony was using her at the end, it was the other therapist who influenced her on a whim with a study about muh sociopath

>>215410641
creeps me out when people try to break down rape in logical terms, even as just a thought experiment

>>215407087
>betrays her family, friends, and fiance because she's unwilling to do (at most) five years for cocaine possession
>one phone call to chris or tony after the feds grabbed her could have gotten melvoin or mink involved and had it either squashed entirely or reduced to a few years
she's a disloyal cunt that deserved to be executed in the woods

>>215411680
i agree, make sure you downvote his post

>>215411680
since we're on the subject
I don't understand rape, except maybe for some "less than consentual" but non-violent cases
I can understand most violent crime, even if I have no desire to do any of that, but not violent rape
this particular rape, for instance
he was robbing her, she resisted, he goes like "oh yeah? fuck you bitch, I'm gonna rape you, then!"
I can't understand that
how do you even get an erection in that moment?
"it's a power thing" they say. ok, now it's even more confusing.
it's like an alien mind, I can't put myself in those people's heads

>>215406759 (OP)
Imagine how it would be to fuck her while she resist

>>215408185
Why didn't she just tell the cops about him?

>>215411680
There’s a reason for everything, rape included.

What's a good therapist? That's like asking if someone is a good astrologist or a good voodoo doctor.

Tony's attractiveness is primal enough that even the psychiatrist who knows in professional detail how fucked up he is will get the flutters

women

>>215406759 (OP)
the show goes to great lengths to tell the audience, "no."

Why does he keep seeing her if she sucks then?

>>215408394
This is my fetish

>>215406781
Everyone needs a therapist, anon. In a field as emotionally taxing as mental health it is necessary to see someone at least occasionally.

>>215406796
>entirely superficial reasons
No, she fired Tony following him tearing that page from her magazine because it was a testament to how he's made essentially zero progress in treatment in all the years they had been working together. Tony had demonstrated that he wasn't going to therapy to actually make any changes, which is a necessary part of treatment. He was completely untreatable. He was a sociopath, as you said, and he was never going to do what it took to get better.

I really want to be an Employee of the Month

>>215407107
No, not really. In her profession, kinda. Melfi is a psychiatrist which is very different from a therapist or even psychologist. Psychiatrists are medical doctors, so medication is a big part of their practice. However, she operates very much out of the scope of her practice in the Sopranos, likely due to how complex mental healthcare can actually be and that having Tony see multiple professionals for different things would waste time and serve no narrative purpose. Psychiatrists don't really do therapy. How Melfi operates is not close to real life.

>>215406759 (OP)
The point is that there are no good therapists

>>215407245
Not a very informed take. Melfi is a flawed person who shows frequent lapses in judgement but she's nowhere near evil, certainly not close to people like Tony. Is she a good psychiatrist? No. She is treating Tony for all the wrong reasons and lets her personal feelings make her decisions for her. Tony manipulates her and she allows it because she has a fervent desire to make things work where they cannot - case in point her failed marriage and poor job co-parenting. Having lapses in judgement and vulnerabilities doesn't make someone evil.

>>215411824
Rape isn't something that can be rationalized. Some people are just weak enough to let the tantalizing idea of power and domination decide their next move. Sex is probably more mental than it is physical. Something can physically feel good without it making you aroused, but you can think about something and physically feel nothing and still get aroused. If you've ever had sex, did you only focus on what you were feeling, or did you also think about what it was that you were doing? Consider porn and all the depraved shit you might've seen there. You aren't feeling anything physically when you watch porn other than maybe you jerking yourself off. But you are watching other people do something, and for it to really make you aroused you have to put yourself in a certain mental state. It's more or less the same process that occurs in rape. Rapists aren't thinking about the other person and what they might be feeling. They're only thinking about fulfilling whatever fantasy it is that they have and letting their most animalistic and barbaric thoughts manifest.

>>215414376
He hasnt studied this hard since grade school

>>215414246
some don't take blood money

>>215411680
My worst nightmare is to one day wake up as a weak cuck who believes in thought crimes, and would dare to impose censorship on their own mind.

>>215407115
she helped tony find and kill people

>>215406759 (OP)
She's a psychiatrist. The Sopranos perpetuated the Hollywood falsehood that psychiatrists sit you on couch and psychoanalyse you. This isn't what they do. Their only job is to prescribe you pills.

>>215411680
Yeah honestly when i saw the scene it really shocked me
It was way more brutal then anything else they showed in up to that point
It was really uncoftable to watch and reall showed the ugliness of it all

>>215406759 (OP)
After last episode?

No, she misdiagnosed Tone as a terrorist

God I wish her and Ton fucked. That would've been so hot

>>215417053
>Their only job is to prescribe you pills.
Not my experience, my experience is they just tell you some platitudes, then overcharge you. Most useles profession.

>>215417121
there was the dream scene where iirc she got her milkers out lad. although i'm more worried why you think tony makes it hot than anything else.

>>215417341
I got a lot out of when I was in therapy, for about 6 months too. but it is just like talking into a mirror and then having someone help reflect on how what you've said is stupid. it's not some profound shit, it's for idiots like me that can't figure shit out alone.

>>215406858
>tony wasn't making any meaningful progress, was just using her to vent and for advice
Isn't that literally the point of shrinks?
t. tried and basically could only vent after clearly telling them what my issues were

>>215417470
If they can't deliver any meaningful change, or at least the openings of, within 6-9 months, then they're not very good at their job. The aim of therapy is to eventually not need it.

>>215406834
Most therapists and social workers, especially women, enter the profession because they suffer from a diagnosed mental disorder themselves. Explaining the pathology in detail is beyond me, but essentially their personality becomes warped around their diagnosis, which they then use as a catchall excuse for whatever negative shit happens around them. They effectively become dependent on mental illness as a means to deflect from personal accountability while using it as a substitute for their near total lack of personality. This wouldn't be such a problem if not for the fact they pathologize and overdiagnose clients to indoctrinate them into their cult of learned helplessness, and then the cycle repeats. So yes, most therapists are head cases and I'm glad to be out of the profession.

The Melfi scenes are almost unbearable after she refuses to tell Tony about the rape. Awesome scene, but the Melfi storyline was dead after that.
That scene was clearly the completion of her character and she should have been written out of the show as soon as possible after that, but they just kept her in her pointless scenes that no longer matter to either character.

>>215417470
I think it depends heavily on where you are in life and what it is that's actually causing you a need to go to a therapist in the first place. if it's something like debt, shit at work or anything else that's outside of your control in the immediate term, then a lot of it feels like bullshit. but it does help. and you gotta pull yourself out of whatever situation it is too and not rely on some therapist to do it for you. they're like crutches.

>>215412752
Therapist becomes theraped

>>215418072
You're absolutely right. Melfi still fulfills a function, the board on which Tony puts his ideas and thoughts to reach this or that conclusion, which is just a way to show what Tony is doing or thinking through blunt exposition, but that's a role that could have been fulfilled by any other friendly character.

>>215408394
drunk melfi was best melfi.

>>215408185
>when I see Jesus fucking Melfi on the stairs but I wanna pass and they're in my way

>>215412752
Therapist meets the rapist

>>215421611
good one

>>215421611
lol

>>215407144
Based answer, love her voice