Treating Tony Soprano: Heroism or Hypocrisy?

Sometimes in life you are put in the position of defending the indefensible. You do the best you can. Can't be too moralistic if you are forced to do the dirty deed.

Who is forcing Melfi...if that is what you are speaking of.

My take on it is that Dr. Melfi is also Italian, and while trying to confront him, she also has to deal with the reality in general, not just Tony's reality, that this "business" is going on. Maybe with Tony as head now, but if not him, someone else. I think she realizes that and therefore has more impact on the general reality of the mafia if she can get Tony to make a few small steps towards understanding.

Not to mention... Do you tell The Don you aren't going to counsel him? Would you refuse the head of the Mafia, knowing what can happen? (Not that I think Melfi is afraid of him overall, but she has been at times)

I don't wanna spoil anything you may not have seen yet, but Tony HAS come close to some pretty big break throughs due to Melfi.

I think Melfi has a responsibility to treat him... and I don't think ot takes a degree to see that Tony has legitimate mental health issues.... you're not allowed to pick and choose your clients if you're a surgeon, why as a shrink?

btw, are we talking about these characters as though they were real people? hmmm...

To paraphrase Dr. McCoy, she's a doctor, not a priest....

Although Dr. Mudd must have second-guessed his decision to treat John Wilkes Booth a few times.

Yep, I be speaking as though they are real....makes sense if you ar elooking at treatment issues through them...

That is an interesting take, Squinney...so. what does that mean you think of the other psychiatrist's stance with Carmela?

I think it's a delicate balance between ethics and doing what is best for the patient.

Tony obviously needs help. He has a lot of issues to work through and that takes time, patience and careful suggestion / leading.

Carmella... (foggy memory of that episode) but if I remember correctly, it was the Dr.s response that threw open Carmella's eyes to the conflict she was having between Tony's work and her faith.

Saved her a lot of money when she realized the Dr. was right.

In other words, and I may be forgetting some details, it seemed to me Carmela's Dr. was doing what was best for Carmela, the kids and his own ethics. She didn't have mental issues to work through. She needed a divorce.

Hmmm...what do you think of the taking blood money issue?

Her doctor refused the money.

And...she DOES have "mental issues".

What about the double existence she leads, the denial etc....

IMO, human beings do not have a RIGHT to treatment by shrinks. It is a priveledge. You are lucky to get it, rather than being born 'deserving' it or not. So that isn't even an issue.

Dr. Melphi has problems of her own from what I've seen of the character. She's a little wacky, don't you think?! I certainly would not trust her with my mental health.

Would you go to a shrink who was treating a Mafia boss?(and the treatment is questionable due to him being able to wack her whenever he feels like it).

The doc. and Tony have an ambiguous relationship which could be interpreted in many ways. That's why I find it interesting to watch. It certainly is not purely professional.

Hmmm, I think it is only a privilege because it is expensive but, I certainly do not think she has no choice about treating someone, just as a surgeon CAN refuse a private patient. Here, psychiatrists are covered by medicare (though some insist on a large addition to this basic cover) for a large number of sessions per year (medicare is the universal health cover in Australia...we are all covered). Psychiatrists here refuse private patients all the time....especially those who are also real therapists of some sort of another. It is one of the beckoning beacons of private work...

Yep, she, like the rest of the world, is a little wacky. If you wait for a perfectly healthy practitioner, in any field, you will wait a looooooong time.

Yes, the relationship is charged with ambiguities....that is indeed why it is so fascinating!

LOL! I guess I've been living with Bi-Polar Bear too long. I thought we all live double existences filled with denial.

Blood money... Tougher to answer. I'd like to think I would refuse to treat Tony or Carmela if I were the Doc. But, I could also see myself justifying it by providing the service for the challenge it would present and donating the the payments to a good cause. (I guess shrinks aren't supposed to take cases for personal challenge, though, huh? Gosh, all the personal evaluation of motives must drive psychologists crazy!)

I do know I would have a major problem with patient confidentiality versus turning him in for criminal behavior. I know Tony tries to be careful about how he words things when talking to Melfi, but the message gets through.

Yes, it does get through....though I DO wonder if she realises the extent....if she does not, is it innocence or denial, I wonder?

He doesn't tell her enough for cops to be able to act on it, though.

You have to wonder how much the fact that he'd kill her if she told weighs on her decision...(I have had some damn scary moments in my career re that one!!!!) and I DO wonder about her taking him back. He is a very attractive man...and very different from the men she knows in real life.

Er, yes, re the double lives and denial!!!!

Lol.

Well, she certainly has enough mental illth for a somewhat analytic therapist in the USA. The norm, given the expense, is for them to treat the worried well, not the really buggered.

I think personal challenge is a reasonable reason to take a case. (I went and worked on a breast cancer unit for a while, to face down the demons of my mother's death. I wouldn't have done it if the demons had been too powerful, though, wouldn't have been fair to clients.)


But...she LIVES on the blood money, no, (just like Carmela does)...sends her kid to uni on it (just like Carmela does).

So... if we take the money, are we just as culpable?


The Jewish guy thought so.

The answer seems clear.

The Jewish guy's statement forced her to make a choice---or at least confront reality.

Melfi knows exactly what Tony does--and I think she's a bit turned on by his power, and hers in relation to him.

I think she knows she should have cut him loose as soon as she knew who he was. He has a reputation all over that area. What's her excuse? Her husband HATES mafioso. Didn't he tell her to cut him loose?

But she knew who he was before she took him on....intellectually at least, the neighbour doctor (who referred him) told her. I think the REALITY of what that meant only hit home later, (after she "went on the lam"....her use of the language is a sign to me that she IS a little beglamoured by his power and badness and her closeness to that, that is a very seductive thing) and she certainly had a crisis over treating him after that.

She felt she was abandoning him if she did not take him back.....(interesting how vulnerable and needy he is in the eyes of the women who really know him. Only Svetlana, so far, has been able to be totally clear eyed about that, and not remain involved, also interesting that THAT is the relationship which blew up the marriage....it is almost as though the illusions could not withstand Svetlana's clear vision)....and I do think that professionalism was part of the decision to do so...ie it IS hard to decide when scariness allows you to stop seeing someone (it is clearer in public practice, you have little choice!) and when you must soldier on, because dealing with that is part of the therapeutic process. Whish it IS, with Tony, if there is any hope he will ever change, (he HAS changed a bit)..she has to be able to cope with all of him, and not reject him.


Anyhoo, you think it clear...I do not....I think it complex....I think, though, if I, for instance, DID treat him, I would have to give the money away.


But i agree with you that there are lots of dynamics around...which is the way of therapy. Thing is, is she really conscious of all of them, and facing them in supervision>????

She has said to her supervisor that she is not sexually attracted to Tony......I am doubting that. It is ok to BE attracted, I think, as long as you are conscious of and dealing with that as a transference/counter transference issue openly and fully in supervision, and not actinf on it unconsciously.


Her ex husband DID say for her not to do it, but he is a dependent man who wanted a mummy, remember...at least that is pretty much how they discussed it together in one episode.


The rape thing was fascinating.....and she passed that test with flying colours. You could FEEL how much she wanted to surrender to Tony's power to wreak revenge, no? But I guess she knew Tony would not have blamed her.



They are SUCH good actors, aren't they?

I love the storyline, the writing, and Gandolfini.

Not too crazy about Melfi (blocking on her name)...

Some hilarious stuff, and I do appreciate black humor--but professionally speaking,... she's lost objectivity due to her attraction.

Power. More of a turn-on than looks. (obviously...lol)

Oy! I am now in the middle of season five.....none of which I appear to have seen.


I see what you mean, Squinney!!!


And the question of whether Melfi is attracted to Tony was sure answered!


Good on her for admitting some attraction at first.

I thought it was pretty well established among psychiatrists that one should not treat a psychopath. It just makes them better at shamming emotion and victimizing people. This may not be well-known among those who do not treat dangerous populations, however.

Oh, that was discussed between Melfi and her supervisor.


Thing is, he really isn't a classic psychopath.


He DOES really care for his kids, for example and has some genuine ...if "toddler level"...empathy.


I was wondering about that just today.


Specifically, I was wondering about career psychopathy ...ie taking up a family business and operating it as expected, within a specific psychopathic culture, which also supports family ties and so on, as opposed to psychopathy from negative esperiences with no embedding in a culture which also supports other things...



I was seeing the Soprano psychopathy as being kind of like that of weapons manufacturers, soldiers, nazi prison guards who didn't get off on it, as it were, but went home to families??????

You know, people with some normal lives, whose circumstances and training are psychopathic, and who hence live in denial and a kind of schizoid relationship with their work, and for whom this psychopathy is built into a culture which creates and sustains it?




"Normal" psychopaths kind of have that, too, with their antisocial and psychopathic associates....but there is a richness to the Soprano milieu's family life (albeit a fuced one for Tony) that I do not think exists for more classic trauma induced psychopaths.

I guess with Tony there is a personhood to work on.


Somewhere.

Or, nmebbe they just write him wrong....

The Mafia from what I know were originally political groups that turned to crime. There have been rumors that Mafia also have links to Masonic groups.