“What, are they crazy?” actress Lorraine Bracco quipped about [APsaA's] award for Dr. Melfi's psychoanalytic psychotherapy of mob boss Tony Soprano (“Freud and the Mob: The American Psychoanalytic Association's Love Affair With ‘The Sopranos,‘ TAP 36/1, page 1). In her turn, co-producer Robin Green was surprised by the award and quipped, ”We just make the stuff up.“
Just imagine that they spoke truth in jest and made up an “interpretation” of the treatment at variance with our Association's:
Bracco: Are they crazy? If Lady Macbeth came for treatment, would they laud the therapist who plays dumb, as though she doesn't know her patient sees blood on her hands because she has blood on her hands; who doesn't assist her to face the psychic reality of the lust for power which leads her (like Tony) to betrayal and murder; who doesn't interpret the unconscious dissociative defense intended to obliterate anxiety-generating self-knowledge; who skirts the unconscious split in the ego and disavowal, while stereotypically exploring the childhood relationship with her father, memories, anxieties, and sexual and aggressive drives?
Green: I told them we just make the stuff up. But are we crazy? If we understood Tony's psychic reality, we'd have a soap about pathogenesis and treatment of a murderer's panic. Who'd want to watch that on TV? No more hit. Then where would we be?
Bracco: Maybe they made a mistake and meant to give the award to “Analyze This” for Billy Crystal's treatment of Tony's counterpart, mob-murderer Robert DeNiro? Crystal empathically understands DeNiro's psychic reality — that's why he's scared to death! Furthermore, he has the wit to use his countertransference for analytic understanding of the anxiety attacks — his patient's and his own. And he's a lot funnier!
Green (reproachfully): Crystal is supposed to be funny and you're not! You are supposed to keep Tony coming for treatment. He and the cast are supposed to remain in character, and “The Sopranos” is supposed to keep being a big hit. Get it?
Bracco (nodding): Maybe we're supposed to get another award for long-term intensive psychotherapy?
(Curtain)
Marian Tolpin, M.D.
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