Is it conceivable that we could go into therapy? In the evening, in front of the television, as a viewer? To get professional help in times of the never-ending pandemic, the continued lockdown. The Covid-19 virus has the Germans under control, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, as infected, recovered, vaccinated, as deniers. The nerves are tense, the mind is attacked.
18 million clicks
Television could help, perhaps with the German adaptation of the series “In Therapy”. At Arte it is currently a sensation in France, a sensational success. Dpa correspondent Sabine Glaubitz reports that the videos in the neighboring country had already been clicked 18 million times after the media library started at the end of January. Even with multiple clicks, this number is huge compared to around 67 million French people. Therapy programs are nothing new in France and psychotherapy is widely recognized. According to a survey published in January 2020 by the journal “Psychologies”, one in three people in France has already undergone therapy.
[„In Therapie”, Arte, Donnerstag, 21 Uhr 45]
The daily newspaper “Le Parisien” explains the success of the 35 parts in the Arte program as collective therapy. Because they are referring to a drama that has shaken France to the core: the attack on the Parisian concert hall Bataclan on November 13, 2015 with at least 89 dead. And the subsequent attacks by the Islamists have caused the terrible memory to shoot up again and again.
Ariane, one of the patients “in therapy”, has tears in her eyes and yet appears completely serene when she talks about her clinic after the attacks in November 2015. “It was total dead silence. And there were injured people and stretchers and blood everywhere, ”the surgeon tells her psychotherapist Dr. Philippe Dayan. “It was so bizarre. Somehow like a ballet. “
The psychotherapist receives five clients in his Paris practice. Each session corresponds to a sequence of up to 30 minutes. The weekly analysis is attended for more than seven weeks. The first begins three days after the Islamist attacks on November 16 with Ariane, who had to continuously operate on injured people after the massacre in Bataclan. You follow nobility. He is a police officer in a special unit that was on duty that Friday evening. He tells how he had to wade through blood and over corpses. Images that have never let go of him since then.
There is war everywhere
In addition to the two, there is a 16-year-old competitive swimmer with suicidal intentions and finally the couple Damien and Léonora in Philippe’s practice, who are deep in a relationship crisis. Even if none of the protagonists was injured directly in the murderous attacks, the attacks hit them all. Also Philippe, whose apartment is only a short distance from the crime scene. There is war everywhere, he explains the situation. All relationships in society are tense.
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“In Therapy” is the French adaptation of one of the most exported Israeli series. It ran there under the title “BeTipul” between 2005 and 2008. Since then it has been exported to seven countries and adapted to the relevant context. The French adaptation is the first series by the successful duo Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, who became internationally known with “Pretty Best Friends”. With a sure instinct, lightness and precision, the directors transferred the series to the French cultural area. With the individual fates they formulate the image of a fragile nation. The series is far from any voyeurism when it addresses violence, racism, discrimination, sexual abuse and religious fanaticism.
Corona is suffocating us
For Pascale Breugnot, who launched one of the first therapy programs with “Psy Show” in the 80s, the success is also due to the current crisis. Corona is suffocating us, she told the newspaper “Le Parisien”. This series, this dialogue is a bit like looking for a way out that you can’t find on your own.
Care, authors, broadcasters in Corona-plagued Germany. How about you would interrupt the crime thriller at least for this series: “In therapy”? Object lessons are again next Thursday. There are episodes 16 to 20 of the series. 1 to 15, missed everything? You can catch up very quickly with the Arte media library.
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